Image: www.imago-images.de
A residential project that is unique in Germany is being built in the middle of Berlin: 73 apartments – exclusively for women who love women.
Feb 13, 2026, 7:18 p.mFeb 13, 2026, 7:18 p.m
Kathrin Martens / watson.de
What was planned for a long time is now reality: next to the Mitte town hall on Berolinastrasse there is an eight-story new building with 73 rental apartments – intended for lesbian and queer women.
The municipal housing company WBM Wohnungsbaugesellschaft Berlin-Mitte is behind the project. Managing director Steffen Helbig speaks to the “Berliner Zeitung” about a “nationwide unique project” that is intended to make diversity, inclusion and neighborly cooperation visible.
73 apartments including care shared apartments
The house offers apartments for various needs: one to four-room apartments, a nursing home community with eight places for older women or women in need of care, many barrier-free apartments and five wheelchair-accessible units, mostly with balconies.
But the residential center also has a lot to offer beyond that. According to the website of the residential project, an event hall for cultural and leisure events and a neighborhood restaurant that is open to the neighborhood and the LGBTIQ+ community.
More than half of the apartments (41 one- and two-room apartments) are publicly subsidized.
Ten years of planning – but no purple paint
The project had a long lead time and was planned for over a decade. The cooperation partner is the Rad und Tat Berlin gGmbH (RuT) initiative, which has been campaigning for lesbian visibility for years. However, not all wishes were implemented. The district rejected a facade in purple or rainbow tones.
Instead, it now wraps itself in brilliant white. It was built on a former parking lot behind the International Cinema. Construction began in 2023 and the path to completion was “long and complex,” WBM told the “Berlin newspaper».
Application is ongoing: sexual orientation is not asked
Interested parties can now apply for an apartment online. Questions include, among other things, the desired floor, whether you want a balcony, job and employer, income and possible insolvency proceedings. What is not explicitly asked about is sexual orientation. And yet the project description clearly states who the house is aimed at.
It sees itself as a cross-generational, inclusive housing project for lesbian people in their diversity – with an integrated care shared apartment and a socio-cultural meeting place. Open to house community, neighborhood and queer community. A residential project that wants to be more than just four walls.