5000 already acquired

Multimillionaire plans phone booth revolution

50 telephone booths in Vienna are to serve as ATMs or charging stations.

(Bild: P. Huber)

Jamal Al-Wazzan is one of the best-known players in the Viennese real estate scene. His new project: breathing new life into telephone boxes. He has secured 5000 nationwide and has already received positive signals from the City of Vienna for the conversion of the first fifty.

Until now, people were only familiar with the boxes in Viennese parks that had been converted from telephone boxes into libraries. Mayor Michael Ludwig has now been enthusiastic about his ambitious new project, multimillionaire Jamal Al-Wazzan tells the "Krone" newspaper. The first 50 new phone booths are to serve as ATMs, charging stations for electric cars and Wi-Fi columns, among other things. Some are also to become "multifunctional help centers" with defibrillators and emergency telephones.

They will retain their previous purpose of making phone calls. In a second step, the new service islands will also make shopping possible, especially in the federal states. "There are plans for vending machines that food retailers will fill with their goods."

We have to make sure that we do something good with these phone booths.

Jamal Al-Wazzan

Saving them from demolition
Al-Wazzan wants to save the phone booths from demolition. "We have to make sure that we turn these phone booths into something good," says the real estate tycoon, who took over 50 Schöps branches years ago in 2008 and found new tenants.

Many negotiations
He currently has around 5,000 telephone boxes as tenants throughout Austria. However, the realization of his project could still take some time. This is because the telephone boxes belong to the municipalities, which is why he has to talk to 500 mayors, as Al-Wazzan emphasizes. In any case, Michael Ludwig is "positively impressed" by the project, especially when it comes to local supply and ATMs, and "as President of the Association of Towns, he is also thinking about other municipalities", according to the mayor's office on Friday afternoon.

Talks are currently being held at the town hall and the project is being examined. An opening date for Al-Wazzan's first fifty multifunctional telephone booths in Vienna has yet to be set. Ludwig's interest has yet to manifest itself in the corresponding permits.