“IN” stands for innovation: With IN-Campus, AUDI AG and the city of Ingolstadt have gotten a strategic investment off the ground. The two parties are renovating the site of a former crude oil refinery together and transforming it into a campus—with a focus on the technologies of the future. Development of IN-Campus as an open building close to nature is already in full swing. The official laying of the cornerstone for the entire site will take place in May 2019.
Construction of the site has already started on partial areas of the former refinery site—in keeping with the progress of soil decontamination. The first structural engineering measure there will be the project house, a large complex made up of four buildings. 42,000 m2 of office and workshop space will be available there to around 1,400 Audi employees and partner companies for innovative technology projects. Development work will start there in late 2020. Wide-ranging infrastructure work for the entire construction section 1 of the IN-Campus site is also currently underway.
A major strength of IN-Campus is the large, continuous area of 75 hectares, the likes of which cannot be found anywhere else in Ingolstadt. It offers an opportunity to create a spacious, flexible, and attractive technology park in which high tech and creativity co-exist. 60 hectares of the area will be used as a commercial and industrial park in the future, while the remaining 15 hectares will be restored to nature and landscape. One further advantage is the geographical location: The site is located close to Audi’s main plant and directly on the A9 freeway, which it plans to use as a digital test area for the development of autonomous driving. The Ingolstadt Süd freeway entrance will be expanded for this purpose and receive a direct connection to IN-Campus.
Free access, open structures, and spacious outdoor facilities will be the hallmarks of the campus character of the site. The buffer area is a green corridor in the east, which facilitates a near-natural transition to the riverside woodland. The riverside woodland and the Danube run adjacent to the north of the site. IN-Campus connects the urban world with the quietness of the Danube wetlands; it creates an interface between high tech and nature. From north to south—from the Danube to the Audi Sportpark—a wide parkway with generous green areas will run across IN-Campus in the future. This wide “campus vein” will be a central element of the site.
In addition to the project house, other high-rise buildings will round off construction section 1: a vehicle safety center, an IT center, a function building, a fire department, and an energy center. The latter will act as a control center for a highly technological energy-based concept on the entire campus site.
IN-Campus is being built on a former refinery site in Ingolstadt, which was in operation for 43 years. In 2015, IN-Campus GmbH, a joint venture of AUDI AG and the city of Ingolstadt, acquired this 75-hectare site. Renovation work started in the fall of 2016 and is set to have been completed by the end of 2022. The high-rise buildings in construction section 1 are likely to have been completed by 2023.