Europe's biggest brothel, costing £3.8m, is poised to open in Saarbruecken, Germany The brothel, being built in Saarbruecken, will employ nearly 100 working girls The controversial business spans 20,000 feet and will cost £3.8million Europe's biggest brothel spanning nearly 20,000 square feet, costing £3.8million and employing nearly 100 working girls is poised to open in Germany. Building work is already underway on the "mega bordello" as it has been dubbed in the German media as prostitution continues to flourish in the country where the world's oldest profession has been recognised since 2001 as a legal one too. But for many residents of the city on the border with France, the house of ill repute is one too many in a community already overflowing with sex parlours. Red light alert: Building work on the brothel in Saarbruecken is under way The centre-left SPD mayoress, Charlotte Britz, is apprehensive of the social strains on the city, stating: "Prostitution has assumed unbearable proportions here." And bemoaning the labyrinthine planning regulations in her homeland, she said: "Businesses like this find it is easy to get permission. In fact, it is easier to open a brothel in Saarbruecken than it is a chip shop. She is calling for the state government to introduce a higher sex tax that would at least pay dividends back into city coffers. Employer: It's thought that around 100 prostitutes will work at the hangar-style brothel Tentatively named Paradise Island, the aircraft-hangar style building is expected to employ at least half its staff from the Polish, Hungarian, Romanian and Bulgarian prostitutes already operating in other sex establishments in the city. Saarbruecken became a magnet for eastern European working girls when the EU expanded its borders in 2007. There are over 1,000 registered sex workers in Saarbruecken, which has a population of 170,000 (stock image) There are over 1,000 registered sex workers in the city of 170,000 and probably three times that many working under the radar. Much of the custom comes from France where official attitudes to prostitution are not as relaxed as in Germany and the laws governing it more complex. Huge number of new customers from the nearby cities of Nancy, Metz and the many small towns in-between are expected to break for the border when Paradise Island opens its doors in January 2014. Thomas Blug, media officer of the state of Saarland in which Saarbruecken sits, is deluged with media enquiries from newspapers around the world - both about the size of the brothel and the social tensions it is creating. "It is not only about Saarbruecken," he says, flustered. "This is also a European problem." Juergen Rudolf, who owns a chain of mega-brothels in Germany, and who is politely referred to in newspapers as 'King of the Knocking Shops', is behind the latest project. He took full advantage of Chancellor Schroeder's government decision back in 2001 giving legal rights to prostitutes to access health, insurance and pension benefits so long as they paid into the tax system. "This will be a great place for men to relax," he said, preferring to paint a picture of an establishment more in line with a gentlemen's club than an industrial-scale sex factory. But prostitute activist groups representing many of the 400,000 registered hookers in the country, say that pimps and enforced prostitution, particularly among migrants, continues to thrive and that efforts to register prostitution have largely failed. Saarbruecken residents are fearful of a rise in street crime and violence when the new bordello opens. They are also mourning the loss of their city's once enviable reputation for fine dining and a laid-back way of living.