Quartier Gare: the district that divides opinion

No district in Luxembourg produces more disagreement than the Gare. One resident will tell you it is the only part of the city with a pulse, with the best restaurants, the widest range of prices and a train that reaches Brussels in three hours from the doorstep. Another will tell you they moved out after eighteen months. Both are describing the same eleven thousand-resident quarter, and the difference between them is usually a matter of three or four streets. This is a district you have to assess address by address, and the reward for doing that properly is the best transport in the country at a price below the plateau.

The shape of the district

The Gare quarter spreads south from the Passerelle and the Pont Adolphe around the central railway station, bounded by Hollerich to the west and Bonnevoie to the east. Around eleven thousand people live there, on a par with Limpertsberg and Kirchberg.

The geography breaks into three parts that behave very differently. The Avenue de la Liberté and the Avenue de la Gare form the grand axis, lined with substantial early twentieth-century buildings, banks and the better restaurants, and this is the district's most expensive and most polished section. West and south of the station, around the Rue de Strasbourg, the Rue de Bonnevoie and the Rue Joseph Junck, the character is denser, more commercial and considerably rougher at night. Further out, toward the Rue de Hollerich and the Bonnevoie boundary, it becomes ordinary residential streets.

Housing is almost entirely apartments, with a large stock of pre-war buildings, many of them converted, and a growing layer of new development on redeveloped commercial plots.

What it costs

The Gare is grouped with Hollerich in most market data, and the two behave similarly.

• Apartments, asking price: broadly €7,000 to €9,000 per square metre, averaging around €8,000 for the Gare and Hollerich together.
• Houses, asking price: broadly €6,500 to €8,500 per square metre, with limited supply.
• Rental, two bedrooms of around 75 m²: commonly €1,800 to €2,300 per month excluding charges, with a wide spread between the Avenue de la Liberté and the streets behind the station.
• Rental, studio: commonly €950 to €1,400 per month excluding charges. The Gare has the deepest studio market in the city.
• Trend: among the strongest in the capital, in the order of five to six per cent over twelve months.

The Gare is the district where the gap between the advertised price and the right price is widest. Two apartments of identical size and condition can differ by fifteen per cent because of what is at street level and who is on the pavement at midnight. Buying well here requires local knowledge, which is precisely why it also offers the best opportunities in the capital.

Getting to work, and everywhere else

This is the strongest transport position in Luxembourg and it is not a close contest.

• Tram Line 1 stops at Gare Centrale and Paräisser Plaz, giving a direct ride north through Hamilius to Kirchberg and the airport, and south through Bonnevoie to Howald and Cloche d'Or, with no change in either direction.
• The central railway station puts Trier, Metz, Thionville, Arlon and Brussels on the doorstep, which matters enormously for cross-border couples and for weekends.
• The national bus network converges here, and all of it is free.
• The airport is a direct tram ride, roughly thirty to thirty-five minutes.

If you work at Kirchberg one day and Cloche d'Or the next, or if your job involves regular travel, the Gare removes more daily friction than any other address in the country.

Food, and the honest part

The Gare has the widest and most interesting food offering in Luxembourg, by a distance. Portuguese, Italian, Cape Verdean, Ethiopian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Indian, Turkish and Balkan restaurants trade within a few hundred metres of each other, alongside the more formal dining rooms along the Avenue de la Liberté. For anyone who cares about eating, this is a serious argument for the district.

Now the part that listings omit. The streets immediately west and south of the station, particularly around the Rue de Strasbourg and the Rue Joseph Junck, carry the city's visible drug scene and its associated street presence. This is a known and long-standing situation, it is concentrated in a small and well-defined area, and it is the single reason most people who dislike the Gare dislike it. It does not extend across the whole quarter. A flat on the Avenue de la Liberté or toward the Bonnevoie side is a different daily experience from a flat three streets west.

The practical instruction is simple: walk the specific street at eleven at night before you sign anything. Fifteen minutes of your time will tell you more than any brochure, and it is the difference between the district that people love and the district that people leave.

Who it suits, and who should look elsewhere

• Suits: professionals who travel frequently; couples working in different business districts; investors, since the rental demand from young arrivals is permanent and yields are above the city average; anyone who wants to live in a city rather than in a residential district.
• Suits less well: families with young children, who will find better value and calmer streets in Bonnevoie, Merl or Howald; anyone sensitive to noise; buyers who want a settled district rather than one in the middle of a fifteen-year transformation.
• Watch for: the ground floor of the building. A residential entrance on a quiet side street and a residential entrance beside a late-licence venue are two entirely different investments, whatever the floor plan says.

Three questions we are asked about the Gare

Is it safe?

Luxembourg has low violent crime by European standards and the Gare is not an exception to that. What the district does have is a visible street scene in a defined pocket near the station, which most residents find unpleasant rather than dangerous. The honest answer is that it depends on your tolerance and, far more, on your street.

Is it a good buy right now?

It has been rising faster than the city average, the tram is built, and the price gap to the plateau districts remains wide. That is a reasonable case for continued convergence. The counterpoint is that the district's problems are slow to solve and are largely outside a property owner's control.

Which streets would you actually recommend?

As a general rule, the Avenue de la Liberté and its immediate side streets, the section toward the Bonnevoie boundary, and the newer developments on the Hollerich side. As a general rule to approach carefully, the block immediately west and south of the station. But this is exactly the kind of question that deserves a specific answer rather than a general one, so ask us about the actual address.

Before you commit to the Gare district

We let furnished rooms and apartments across Luxembourg City and manage sales in every district covered by this series. If the Gare district is on your shortlist, the fastest way to test it is to see the current stock and the real monthly cost rather than the advertised one. We will tell you honestly whether the Gare district is the right answer, or whether the district next door gives you more for the same money.

A useful way to test the shape of the district is to run a normal-day scenario. For the question raised by “The shape of the district”, the useful detail is not a generic list of advantages.

A stronger reading of food, and the honest part starts by asking what would change for the resident on an ordinary weekday.

A useful editorial test for three questions we are asked about the gare is to look at the consequence rather than the headline feature.