Once upon a time there was a village: How the expansion of the chip industry is changing the north of Dresden

Henry Berndt

Dresden. Has a UFO landed in the middle of the slopes above Dresden? Or are they the lights of a new amusement park? No, it must be cranes. Many, very tall cranes. If you look north from the Elbe basin after dusk, you can't miss the illuminated Infineon construction site. It dominates the night-time panorama, just as the chip industry is increasingly shaping the north of Dresden.

The construction site on the edge of the Heide, where Infineon is currently investing around five billion euros in the expansion of its plant, measures around 30,000 square meters. That is more than twice as much as the entire annual budget of the city of Dresden. It will be the largest microchip factory in Europe with around 4,500 employees. The previous record holder is just a ten-minute drive away on the other side of the A4: Globalfoundries with around 3,000 employees. There is also the Bosch plant near the airport. Right next door, a chip factory owned by Taiwanese investor TSMC will also be starting operations in the near future.

A further 2,000 jobs are to be created at the European Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (ESMC). However, not much of this can be seen on site yet. Yellow signs on the fence read: "No trespassing on the construction site." A guard in a high-visibility vest keeps watch. In the wide area behind the fence, a yellow excavator is tearing down a wall with its voracious shovel. Otherwise, the construction site has already been largely cleared. Long green pipes and impressive piles of sand lie ready.

The major investments in the chip industry are bringing more people, more traffic and more infrastructure to Dresden. What does this do to the northern districts? Separated from the city by the largely uninhabited Hellerberge, they once developed largely independently. Wilschdorf and Rähnitz remained farming villages for a long time, which can still be seen in the streetscape today. Klotzsche, on the other hand, became a spa and villa suburb at the end of the 19th century. Construction of the garden city of Hellerau began in 1908.

The construction of the highway and Klotzsche airport in the 1930s had a lasting impact. The north of Dresden has been known as an industrial location since the end of the Second World War. The establishment of microelectronics after 1990 can be seen as a logical continuation of this development. However, not many people saw it coming so quickly in 2024. For example, a new, ten-kilometer-long canal is currently being built up to the sewage treatment plant in Kaditz for the gigantic amount of industrial wastewater.

After the airplanes overhead, the residents of the Klotzsche district have now also become accustomed to the rattling of construction vehicles.

On this afternoon in October, around 1,000 workers are on duty at the Infineon construction site - each equipped with a helmet, safety goggles, vest, gloves and boots. 16 cranes are turning. Anyone wanting to enter the construction site has to go through a turnstile. A perfectly organized anthill.

"Should look like a shoebox"

At the entrance to the construction site, there is a queue of trucks carrying tons of concrete. The slabs with the many round holes are intended for the floor of the future clean room floor. While the shell is still being raised in the western section, the final height of around 20 meters has already been reached in the eastern section. The walls in the technical building have already been painted.

"If it were only about functionality, then a factory like this would have to look like a shoebox," says project manager Holger Hasse. But with such a prominent presence in the cityscape, other criteria would have to be taken into account. Infineon negotiated with the city for a long time about the design of the façade, which is now supposed to appear pleasingly crenellated when viewed from the valley.

The planners now like to use Königstein Fortress as a metaphor for the future block. It should appear massive, but somehow majestic.

Work six days a week, 24 hours a day

Work is carried out on the construction site 24 hours a day, six days a week. Sometimes even on Sundays. About half of the building shell is now complete, says Hasse. They are well on schedule and on budget. The roof should be closed by spring 2025. Production could start at the end of 2026. Are further extensions ruled out after that? "Certainly not, but the people of Dresden hold their Heide sacred," says project manager Hasse. "And the site doesn't belong to Infineon."

The company is aware that the residents of the Klotzsche district are being put through a lot during the construction work. After 450,000 cubic meters of excavated earth had been carted into the industrial estate on Wilschdorfer Landstraße for weeks up to the spring, Infineon invited residents to a free car wash day. Unsurprisingly, the thank you was used extensively. All 48 appointments were booked long before the end of the registration period.

Infineon regularly addresses its "dear neighbors" in a specially written newsletter. In September, the company hosted an autumn walk with a forest educator and the fourth Citizens' Dialogue in the auditorium of the Klotzsche secondary school. A neighborhood café is planned for December 5 at the Bio-Bahnhof.

Rising real estate prices bring new clientele

Infineon has also recently approached the Hellerau Citizens' Association, supporting it, for example, with the organization of the Advent market. The citizens' association is committed to preserving the heritage of the garden city of Hellerau and at the same time developing ideas for the future. "We are not worried about the garden city itself," says Wolfgang Gröger from the board. Its green idyll is a listed site and therefore well protected from excavator shovels. However, there is some concern that the influx of new residents is changing the social structure. "Houses are now being traded here at exorbitant prices," says Gröger. This is bringing other clientele into the village, and the number of "original residents" is dwindling.

The expansion of the chip industry is expected to create 27,000 new jobs in Dresden in the medium term. At least 10,000 new apartments are to be built. Unfortunately, the city is currently primarily pursuing the goal of densifying residential areas instead of thinking bigger," says Gröger. His association has come up with the idea of a Garden City 2.0, a new district in the north of Dresden that is green, sustainable and has an attractive infrastructure. Perhaps one of the chip giants could be won over as a sponsor?

Until then, it will probably remain a dream, says Gröger. The 72-year-old comes from Bremen. As a physicist, he helped build the Infineon factory in Dresden in the 1990s. He is pleased that Infineon and Co. are now bringing new economic power and jobs to the north of Dresden.

The gardeners in East Germany's largest allotment garden site also have a generally positive view of the gleaming cranes. The Hellersiedlung begins barely two kilometers from the Infineon construction site and extends over 55 hectares. Almost 1,000 tenants enjoy their green paradise here.

Managing Director Ramon Himburg worked for the Center for Microelectronics Dresden (ZMD) during the GDR era, which produced the first one-megabit memory chip in the Eastern Bloc at the end of the 1980s. "There's no doubt that today's settlements are important for Dresden and Saxony," says the 64-year-old. You can't rule out the possibility that one or two companies just want to collect the subsidies and leave after three or four years, but you have to take that risk.

The allotment gardeners are not directly affected by the expansion of the industrial plants, apart from an increasing demand for plots. Some Infineon employees are already growing their potatoes in the Hellersiedlung. Nevertheless, some gardeners are worried. What if a major investor comes along and wants to buy the Hellersiedlung site? Almost the entire site belongs to the state of Saxony. The city only owns a small part. "I don't think that's very likely," says Himburg. Nothing will happen until at least 2033, if only because the Heller Estate is part of the concept for the planned Federal Garden Show in Dresden.

The city of Dresden promotes Klotzsche as an attractive place to live. The district is very diverse, well "greened" and hardly densely populated, they say. The proximity to the Heide is a big plus. There are also excellent transport links. A large number of clubs enrich cultural and social life. Preserving this is the order of the day, says district manager Thomas Grundmann. "The borough will change. More people will live here who have different needs that need to be taken seriously."

The Office for Economic Development shares this view. "Economic development and good residential quality must work together and are even mutually dependent," they say. "The state capital of Dresden is aware of this challenge."

These two things cannot always be advanced without conflict, as the planned extension of streetcar line 8 shows. In order to better connect the Chipwerke to local public transport, Dresden's mayor for construction Stephan Kühn wants to extend the line beyond Hellerau to the north. An analysis of the potential is talking about 3,500 additional passengers per day.

Annette Plambeck doesn't want to believe it. The 54-year-old lives on Vorerlenweg, a small street not far from the streetcar turning loop. The road is barely 150 meters long, with houses and small businesses to the left and right. Annette Plambeck bought her house with the yellow façade in 2001. She found out from the newspaper that the extended line 8 in the favored variant 1a could run right past it in the future. "To be honest, I'm shocked and quite angry," she says. "This is one of the last village centers we still have. We're already affected by the airport anyway, but now they want to destroy us."

There were already plans to extend the streetcar along this very street in the 1990s, according to other residents of the street who prefer to remain anonymous. While they are keeping their feet still for the time being, Annette Plambeck's first reaction was to speak to her lawyer. She does not believe that the expansion of Line 8 would bring the hoped-for benefits. Instead, she fears that the tracks in front of her house will reduce the value of her property. Of course the city must remain attractive for investors, says Annette Plambeck, "but the planners should always consider the price to be paid for this".