The Ostend district of Frankfurt is being transformed. The east end of the city used to be an undeveloped area with docks, rail tracks and a business district along Hanauer-Landstrasse, but limited or low quality housing. Once it was announced that the ECB would be relocating to the area with several thousand employees, the changes became obvious. There has been a steady appearance of upmarket and luxury apartment blocks, hotels and restaurants.

If you about to start working at the ECB tower then you are spoilt for choice (so long as you aren’t on an intern salary!). There are a number of big apartment complexes that have just opened in the last year and plenty of vacant rooms still. Part of the problem in this part of the town is that it is fairly undeveloped in terms of amenities, but the one place that is developing as a centre is the large new complex called ‘The East‘ located just near Ostend station directly opposite the ECB.

The East is an egg-shaped development with a pedestrian zone up the middle. On either side are private apartments with a hotel – Innside by Melia – in the middle.

At the moment, the whole area is a little quiet, but this is changing quickly as more of the apartments fill up and the hotel gets better used. If you are planning a short stay or an overnight, then the Innside Hotel is a really nice option. You have not only a nice, very clean internal design, but also a tapas restaurant and bar downstairs called Stock Avenue 81 which has a really good choice of cocktails and a large projected screen on the wall which will be great for the football.

There are a few unique points to this hotel. Firstly, they do in-room dining with a twist. You don’t even have to be staying at the hotel in order to book a room for a private dinner. I would guess that you could comfortably fit 8-10 people into some of the rooms for a private or business dinner. On top of that if you are looking for an activity room for team work, brainstorming or similar, they have a very nice creative space which can be booked for the day, food included.

The area is made complete by the great idea to include a Rewe (supermarket) and DM (Pharmacy) in the complex as well as branches of Aroydee (popular local Thai restaurant) and Jessie James (popular burger joint and bar).

If you do choose to stay short-term or long-term in the area then don’t worry about transport connections. Within a few minutes you are at the A661 (although rush hour traffic along Hanauer-Landstrasse is a pain), or the Strassenbahn 11 and several S-bahns go from just nearby.