Winterthur: SBB lays foundation stone for «signal box»
66 apartments, 2,000 square meters for offices and retail space are being built at the city's train station.
SBB is building 66 city apartments as well as space for offices, healthcare, education and retail in the immediate vicinity of Winterthur station under the project name «Stellwerk», which is expected to be completed by mid-2028. The existing bicycle station will also be expanded by 510 spaces. The foundation stone for the project was laid a few days ago.
«New residential and commercial space is being created on areas that are no longer required for railroad operations without building on additional land,» says Salomé Mall, Head of Development SBB Real Estate. The apartments will be on floors three to six. There will be 16 apartments with one or two rooms each, 24 apartments with two and a half rooms and ten apartments with three and a half rooms. The available living space will be supplemented by common rooms and guest rooms for rent. The two lower floors contain flexible office space with a total area of around 2,000 square meters. A 700 square meter retail space will also be created on the first floor.
The project is being implemented by Esch Sintzel Architekten. This was the winner of a competition held by SBB together with the city of Winterthur for the approximately 2,000 square meter site between Signal Box 1 and the Wülflingerstrasse underpass. The work is being carried out by the Sera and Proplanning consortium. Construction work started in August 2025 and is expected to last until mid-2028. The building will be commissioned and occupied in stages from the beginning of 2028.
Construction was originally scheduled to start at the beginning of 2023. «However, due to the tense market situation and the strong fluctuations in raw material prices, the contract could not be awarded in fall 2022 as planned,» writes SBB. The work therefore had to be re-tendered and the start of construction postponed.
