Renate is NOT closing now? Something doesn't feel right
We should really be celebrating this, but I can't help but feel we're missing something
So Renate is NOT closing now?
In a blog post from the other day, Renate announced that they’re not closing down and, instead, have reached “an agreement” with the landlord to continue on as a club.
The post is in German, and I know most people reading this may struggle to understand it themselves, so whack it into your favourite online translator to understand more.
And I recommend you do, because something feels off about this announcement to me.
If you were to read the Mixmag coverage of this reopening, you would imagine that the club and the landlord reached a pleasant agreement in which the club was offered the privilege to continue on as a club and everyone goes home happy. However, if you read the (translated) blogpost from Renate themselves, a very different story is told in which Renate are profusely apologising for their hurried “publicised statement that had not been sufficiently agreed on internally” [1], this is in reference to their original closing announcement (blog version no longer available online).
They go on to “retract their public statement and apologise to the landlord” [2] because of how “overly pointed” the statement was, how it “omitted important aspects of the ongoing discussions” [3] and how it “resulted in personal attacks” [4] against the landlord.
In their defence, they talk about how it was published in a “highly emotionally charged situation” [5] and that, now, “misunderstandings were clarified and the foundations for a new collaboration were laid […] accompanied by the establishment of a new operating company and a structural realignment of the club” [6]. They will also still close after their marathon 86 hour NYE party and won’t take bookings in the new year, but they will “regroup after […] and carefully plan [their] next steps” [7].
All in all, this is excellent news for the city, with its growing Clubsterben issue.
But, something is off about all of this.
When you compare the translation to their Instagram post announcement below:
It’s immediately clear that they’re saying different things. On Instagram, it seems as if it’s all happy days and that Renate and the landlord came to the aforementioned pleasant agreement. But then their blogpost on their website talks of how the landlord was personally threatened as a result of the initial closing announcement and Renate apologise as they feel partly to blame for that.
Why the difference in announcement?
What actually happened? Why does this blog post smell like legal speak?
Well, to start, let’s take a moment to talk about this mysterious landlord.
Gijora Padovicz is his name, and he’s developed such a name as a real estate investor in Berlin that an entire website has been dedicated to tracking his investments. According to the Padovicz WatchBlog, he’s been “working since the 90s as a buyer and a renovator of entire blocks of flats - above all in the Friedrichshain neighborhood”. They claim that he’s “closely connected to the Berlin Senate” and that he “was granted half of all the subsidies for the renovation of old buildings [in Berlin].”
For context, after the wall came down, Berlin offered loans to investors to rebuild the city as vast swathes of it were uninhabitable. The city still does this to this day as the city is facing a housing crisis.
However, where Padovicz makes a name for himself, is how he renovates with the alleged intention to replace the tenants with “more lucrative clients” and sometimes even refugee families. TAZ, the source for that last statement, is a prominent left-wing newspaper in Germany and also tracks Padovicz’s investments in the city.
The WatchBlog says that the man is a “destroyer of living spaces” by employing “rent increases, destruction of social structures and ultimately displacement” to “upgrade the inner city” with the subsidies earned by the renovation program. One of Padovicz’s latest developments is when his company cleared out a queer feminist squat on Liebigstraße 34 in Friedrichshain as reported by ND Aktuell, who also run a profile on Padovicz and his investments on their website. Squats are also widely regarded as a key aspect of Berlin culture and squat evictions are so controversial that a 2 day war broke out between the authorities and squatters in 1990.
To get an idea of how much of an influence this man’s investments have had on Friedrichshain, one of the areas at the forefront of the city’s gentrification conversation, the WatchBlog displays a handy map of the city with properties marked as owned by his companies. His collection is vast.
This man is well-known, and not entirely for positive reasons. And his prolific involvements in the city’s rental market raises some questions with what’s going on with Renate.
After all, this was the man in charge of the company that shut down Watergate, Berlin’s clubbing loss in 2024.
This is the second time one of his clubbing properties have been involved in closure controversies and it leaves me with the burning question: what’s actually going on?
What are the details of this latest agreement? Why does the blog post announcement feel like legal speak? Was Renate offered the opportunity to stay open given the requirement that they publicly apologise to Padovicz’s company after genuine personal attacks? What happened between Padovicz’s company and the Renate team? Was the club ever meant to close? Why is this only being announced now, so long after the original closure announcement? Were Renate just making it out as if they were going to close? Was it for publicity? Why do the announcements differ, especially in the different German and English languages? Is it to make Renate look better in the English version to the inevitable international attention that comes with said publicity? Does this have anything to do with the controversial A100 motorway expansion that threatens the existence of the club? Are the closures only happening so the land can be sold to the state at the increased cost of the land due to the gentrification?
Or is something greater at play, seeing as Watergate closed almost a year ago, yet still stands empty and adorned with the club logos today?
Something just doesn’t sit right with this latest announcement. I feel like we’re not being told the full story here and I am left with more questions than answers.
At the end of the day though, I am pleased with the announcement. The city’s nightlife could do with some good news and Renate staying around a little longer is very good news if you ask me. I’ve been three times now and I find it to be a very solid night out in the city. The crowd can be a bit hit and miss, but the club space, energy, and music have all been exceedingly good. It’s an old housing block just by the Elsen Bridge in the east of the city, and most of the old accommodation aspects have been kept on to inspire the club. It feels like a house party, with small and intimate rooms, and staircases between the dancefloors. Nooks and crannies galore, it’s great fun to explore the little secrets the club has.
If you do find yourself in Berlin and fancy a night out, you wouldn’t go amiss with choosing Renate.
[1]: “die Erklärung in der veröffentlichten Form nicht ausreichend intern abgestimmt war”
[2]: “Wir nehmen diese Erklärung in der veröffentlichten Form daher zurück und entschuldigen uns bei dem Eigentümer des Grundstücks”
[3]: “Sie war inhaltlich zugespitzt [und] ließ wichtige Gesprächsdynamiken aus”
[4]: “in deren Folge es auch zu persönlichen Anfeindungen kam”
[5]: “wurde aus einer emotional sehr aufgeladenen Situation heraus getroffen”
[6]: “Dabei wurden Missverständnisse geklärt und die Grundlagen für eine neue Zusammenarbeit geschaffen. In der Folge konnte eine Einigung über die Verlängerung des Mietvertrags erzielt werden, begleitet von der Gründung einer neuen Betreibergesellschaft und einer strukturellen Neuausrichtung des Clubs.”
[7]: “müssen wir uns nach Silvester zunächst sammeln und unsere weiteren Schritte sorgfältig planen”