"We have signed a lease for a Lego store," reports Holger Römer, spokesman for the Zech Group, which is affiliated with the Urban Soul developers. The store, with about 400 square meters, is scheduled to open before Christmas, he said. That means almost all the space in the building has been leased, according to Römer. Negotiations are still underway with a retailer which has an international food concept, he said, as well as with several restaurateurs who are interested in the last vacant space (350 square meters) at the Piazza on Maximilianstrasse. The restaurant Sander and the new chain Maloa with Hawaiian cuisine are already located there. Other Urban Soul tenants include the burger joint Five Guys, Dunkin' Donuts and the XtraFit gym.

The new Lego store will be the 15th in Germany. There are four in NRW so far, including one in Cologne and one in Düsseldorf. Lego Germany would not confirm the store opening in Bonn, only communicating through a PR agency that it had no comment at this time. The company reacted the same way in the summer, even though it was looking for store managers and employees for the Bonn location on its website.

The sparse communication is typical for Lego, says Lukas Kurth from Wuppertal, who runs the blog stonewars.de for the Lego fan community. There are many adults in that fan group, and it is so large that the mechanical engineer says he can live off his blog and pay three employees as well. His small team spares no effort in tracking down news. One volunteer just traveled from Berlin to Dresden to find out in which shopping center the next Lego store would be opened.

But why is there so much interest when all the products can be easily ordered online? "It's all about the experience factor," explains the 30-year-old. "Long lines sometimes form in front of the stores." What's more, the figures and components don't have to be bought there as complete sets: You can buy individual Lego bricks by weight, create mini-figures yourself from individual parts and assemble your own models. In larger Lego stores like the one in Düsseldorf (Flinger Strasse), customers young and old can even have their creations printed with their own motif in the so-called mini-figure factory.

Alexander B. Jentsch is also banking on the experience factor. The Bonn-based entrepreneur is owner of the building on Gangolfstrasse, where the Westenhöfer family operated the legendary Puppenkönig toy store until 2019. According to Jentsch, Playmobil is the exclusive tenant of the new store, so there will be no goods from other suppliers there. Instead, there will be Playmobil everywhere on a total of 1,000 square meters: two floors are to be reserved exclusively for playing and experiencing - with large backdrops for themed worlds such as police, royal castle, space and dragons. Digital game consoles are also planned.

Items are sold on the first floor, where parents and grandparents can make themselves comfortable in a bistro. The traditional Christmas model train in the shop windows also comes from Playmobil.

At Puppenkönig GmbH, "more than a dozen" jobs will be created, Jentsch said. The reopening should take place no later than St. Nicholas Day (December 6), but preferably sooner, he said. There were plans to open as early as the second quarter of 2021 but this did not materialize due to unfortunate surprises during the core renovation of the old building and supply bottlenecks for building materials.

The Roman Catholic religious order of the Franciscans will be able to move in next year on the second and third floors above the new Playmobil store. Competition from Lego doesn't concern retail broker Jentsch in the least: "I think it's great. It helps revitalize the city center and complements our offerings."

The Lego Group is a Danish company with headquarters in Billund. It is one of the top-selling toy manufacturers in the world and has its German headquarters near Munich. Lego was founded in 1932 by a carpenter as a company for wooden toys. The name is said to derive from the Danish "spiel gut."

Playmobil is a brand of the Brandstätter Group, based in Zirndorf near Nuremberg. The figures are less small-scale than Lego's. Playmobil also has building kits that can be used to create toy buildings, for example. Brandstätter first introduced Playmobil at the Nuremberg Toy Fair in 1974 - and it went on to triumphant success in children's bedrooms around the world. The group is one of the sales kings among German manufacturers.

Orig. text: Andreas Baumann - Translation: ck