The towering headquarters of a major bank gets a complete renovation in Budapest

Erste Bank will renovate its headquarters, the Europa Tower in Népfürdő Street in the 13th district of Budapest, and the office building will be called Erste Tower. The bank is planning a comprehensive, all-encompassing reconstruction of the building, according to a press release.

The 30,000 square metre office building was inaugurated in 2006. Ten years later, the building, which at the time was considered very modern, was ripe for a facelift. The renovation, which was completed in mid-2019, has resulted in a new, unified interior design, with spacious open-plan spaces replacing isolated offices.

How the project will work

The design process for the renovation of the Erste Tower will start in 2025, while the approval is expected in 2026. The renovation will proceed level by level, so that colleagues will not have to leave the building during the works, which are expected to be completed in 2028. In addition to a comprehensive and complete renewal of the mechanical installations, the interior spaces will again be renewed. The planned functional design will further support day-to-day operations. 

The home office is also a key design consideration

The Erste Tower, however, is no longer as modern as it was two decades ago, its machinery needs a major overhaul, and the offices and public spaces need to be redesigned: the building, once designed to house 2,000 people, now has on average less than half that number of people at any one time.

In all the central areas where this is possible in terms of job content and workflow, colleagues can work from home 60 per cent of the time - which means they have to be in the office two out of five days a week.

Two-thirds carbon savings could be achieved

Sustainability is important to Erste, and it takes environmental considerations into account as much as possible as an integral part of its strategy and core business, the statement stresses. Therefore, instead of building a new headquarters, the decision was taken to carry out a comprehensive renovation of the existing building, which is a greener solution from all points of view and contributes to reducing the bank's carbon footprint.

International studies have shown that renovating an existing building can save 50-75% of carbon dioxide emissions compared to new construction, especially when combined with energy-efficient improvements. For a building the size of the Erste Tower, this means that nearly ten years of carbon dioxide emissions equivalent to its own operation could be prevented.