EDGE East Side Berlin

When PIMCO Prime Real Estate agreed the forward-purchase in 2019 of EDGE East Side Berlin on behalf of a client joint venture, we were willing to take the leasing risk. The ink had barely dried on the acquisition contract when, as an indicator of the building’s prime quality, Amazon signed a 100% pre-lease a full four years before delivery, with developer Edge retaining a single floor of space.

EDGE East Side Berlin is a workplace built around optimizing the user experience. Standing at 142 meters tall within the city’s regenerated MediaSpree district, it features 65,000 sqm of offices across 27 large core floors. Users are presented with an enriching work environment offering flexible co-working spaces, sophisticated conference rooms, fitness facilities and cafes that combine to foster wellbeing, work-life balance and enhance productivity – not to mention the spectacular views from the terraces integrated into the staircase-like recesses lining the tower. The internal atmosphere is maintained through fully automated smart technologies, which also promote highly sustainable building operations.

And then there is the striking appearance. Inspired by the ‘Kiez’ city blocks of this area of Berlin, the 36-storey building consists of five stacked masses, each proportionally aligned with the surrounding blocks, but shifted vertically to foster connections across all floors. The effect is a dynamic vertical community.

This community aspect also extends outwards to the surrounding Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg districts. Summer 2025 saw the launch of the ‘KiezLab’, 1,400 sqm of free-to-use space within EDGE East Side Berlin dedicated to local NGOs and initiatives as a way to include the neighborhood in the building.

All these aspects combined let to the asset winning two awards of excellence from the Council on Tall Buildings & Urban Habitat in 2025 for ‘Best Tall Building, by Height (100-199 meters)’ and ‘Best Tall Building, by Region, Europe’.

Our conviction, in 2019 to acquire EDGE East Side Berlin – a prime, sustainable, and centrally located asset – was based on an emerging bifurcation of the office market, where prime-quality, well-located assets in top CBDs would continue to attract tenants and command strong demand, while older, poorly located buildings with outdated concepts risked obsolescence and would struggle to remain competitive without significant capital investment. Our investment in EDGE East Sde Berlin, then, was ahead of the curve, as is the building itself.