If you want to make more than a shopping spree in Mönchengladbach, you should have your condition. The Hindenburgstrasse between the main train station and the old market rises over a length of more than one kilometer. If you are not yet out of breath, you will start the final sprint in the upper part with over 5 % slope. Therefore, the Hindenburgstrasse is popularly referred to as the steepest shopping mile in Germany.
Economic development has analyzed the Mönchengladbach location with 275,000 inhabitants. Project manager Michel Hontoy: “A challenge is the revitalization of the city center, which has suffered from structural empty status and change in retail in recent years.” Economic development puts the vacancy at around 15 %. It is particularly reflected in Hindenburgstrasse, which has lost attractiveness in recent years. A loss for Hindenburgstrasse was in particular the closure of Galeria Kaufhof in January 2024. The location analysis continues that the central shopping street has experienced changes in recent decades, above all by opening the Minto shopping center in Middle Hindenburgstrasse. The Minto, opened in 2015, brought back to Mönchengladbach with over 15 million visitors per year and gave the city a new, positive image. However, the Minto also has a negative impact on the surrounding retail sites, the study restricts. The Minto acts as a “city in the city” and attract many visitors from outside, which then only visit the shopping center. The remaining retail along Hindenburgstrasse benefits little from these number of visitors, says Michel Hontoy. Many shops should have closed and were replaced by a few attractive concepts. “There is a larger slope of rental prices between the Minto and other locations on Hindenburgstrasse.” Concepts would have to be used to lure people out, especially an improvement in the quality of stay is urgently necessary. “We have to make people go out of the Minto.” For the lack of quality of stay of the Hindenburgstrasse, we notice when we visit Mönchengladbach: a unattractive wide -paved roadway separates the two street sides. There is no car here, but the regular buses, which in turn bring customers to the city. Decathlon opened in the Minto in July 2025. Humanic, on the other hand, took up an area of approx. 400 sqm with the opening.
