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New indoor swimming pool: The lines between the city of Weilheim and the district are clear

2020-10-22T06:12:57.368Z


It is an exception: the city of Weilheim and the district have been running the Weilheim indoor swimming pool together since 1972 and sharing the costs. Now it urgently needs to be renovated or demolished and rebuilt. Whether the district and the city will do it together again is in the stars.


It is an exception: the city of Weilheim and the district have been running the Weilheim indoor swimming pool together since 1972 and sharing the costs.

Now it urgently needs to be renovated or demolished and rebuilt.

Whether the district and the city will do it together again is in the stars.

  • The indoor swimming pool in Weilheim urgently needs to be renewed.

    So far, the city and district have shared the costs.

    Whether this will continue to be done in the future is in the stars.

  • Yesterday the main committee of the city and the district committee of the district council met together.

    Four variants for a future indoor swimming pool were presented.

  • The costs for the individual variants differ significantly - they are between 13.2 and 25 million euros.

District

- The list of deficiencies in the indoor swimming pool in Weilheim is long.

Very long, as became clear yesterday morning at the joint meeting of the main committee of the city of Weilheim and the district committee.

Florian Steinbach, Head of Construction and Property Management at the District Office, listed: The roof and the prestressed concrete supports that hold it now have to be examined every three years to guarantee safety;

the facade insulation, which was installed sparingly in 1972 anyway, was largely eaten by animals.

The pool joint is leaking, water keeps running into the cellar;

Tiles are hollow, the ailing diving tower had to be replaced this year.

"The structural condition of the bathroom is not getting any better after 48 years," said District Administrator Andrea Jochner-Weiß.

That is why the main and district committee met together to sound out how to proceed in the future with regard to indoor swimming pools.

Other municipalities built their indoor swimming pools without subsidies

The situation is difficult.

There are many indoor pools in the district - in Peißenberg, in Schongau, the family pool in Penzberg is currently being rebuilt.

But the district only has a direct financial interest in an indoor swimming pool.

All investment costs and the compensation of the annual deficit are divided: the city bears 60 percent of the costs, the district 40 percent.

A contract from 1972 stipulates that.

The reason for this regulation was that the district uses the hall for school sports.

Of course, there are also swimming lessons in the other swimming pools in Penzberg, Peißenberg and Schongau.

But here the district office does not contribute to the investment and operating costs, but simply pays for the hours that are used for school sports, as the mayors of Schongau and Penzberg, Falk Sluyterman (SPD) and Stefan Korpan (CSU), clarified during the meeting.

So that the city and district councils have a basis for discussion about the future of the indoor swimming pool, the Kannewischer company from Switzerland was commissioned to analyze how the number of visitors could be increased and what sums would have to be spent to build and build a new indoor swimming pool operate.

Currently only available to the public for 40 hours per week

The figures that Stefan Studer von Kannewischer presented to the two committees via video conference and the conclusions he drew from them were sobering.

The indoor swimming pool in Weilheim currently has around 70,000 visitors a year.

The facility is open 94 hours a week, but only for 40 hours to the public.

The annual deficit without investment costs amounts to around half a million euros, which is divided between the district and the city.

"Due to the generous occupancy times for the schools, sales are low," says Studer.

It is noticeable that only a quarter of the time reserved for schools is used for swimming lessons in primary schools.

Above all, middle and secondary schools and the grammar school from the Weilheim area would use the swimming pool, says Studer.

“Just the beginning of a long debate” - says the district administrator

This is due to the fact that the primary schools often lack the specialists for swimming lessons, but at the same time the education authorities are against the fact that a qualified swimming master supports the teacher, explained district treasurer Norbert Merk.

Consultant Studer then presented various options for how the indoor pool could be expanded in the future.

They ranged from a modernization as it is today, to a sports pool that would attract more bathers, to a leisure pool where swimming lessons could also take place.

The costs were between 13 and 25 million euros, the expected annual subsidy requirement between 600,000 and 1.1 million euros.

In the subsequent debate it quickly became clear that the city of Weilheim has a strong interest in continuing the partnership with the district, but that the members of the district committee are hardly willing to do so.

The objective and realistic investigation was praised in unison.

Yesterday's meeting was "just the start of a long debate," said District Administrator Andrea Jochner-Weiß, who occasionally indicated that she too was skeptical about further involvement of the district.

But she asked "for fairness in the further discussion - we have always worked well with Weilheim".

These are the four different variants:

Sauna fans have to be very brave.

Because the expert Stefan Studer, who was connected via video conference from Switzerland, made it clear: Due to the competitive situation - there are large saunas in Peißenberg and Schongau, another one is currently being built in the family pool in Penzberg - there is not the necessary clientele for in Weilheim a large sauna.

A rather small, functional sauna at the indoor pool is certainly possible, but would still cost one to two million euros.

It makes more sense to “install a steam bath in the bathing area if necessary,” says Studer.

The topic “sauna” was more of a secondary aspect in the context of his lecture at the joint meeting of the main committee of the city and the district committee of the district council.

Rather, it was about showing basic possibilities of how the indoor swimming pool in Weilheim could be developed in the future.

The expert says that there is a tension between costs, benefits and returns.

In addition, there is the fundamental decision as to whether the swimming pool will also be designed for use for swimming lessons in the future, or whether it will focus more on increasing income by allowing more public traffic.

The expert presented the following four variants for a future design of the indoor pool:

version 1

Studer described this variant as a “minimal offer for swimming and swimming lessons”.

The small children's pool, which is not used today, would be completely rationalized away.

The actual swimming pool is to have five 25-meter lanes, as it is today, and a somewhat smaller so-called “Vario pool” would be added instead of today's teaching pool.

Not only swimming beginners could be taught safely here, a lifting floor could also be used for courses and relaxed swimming.

The diving tower, which was only built this year, would no longer be replaced with this variant.

With this new concept, three groups could use the indoor pool at the same time during school lessons, says Studer.

Today it is almost always only one class that swims here.

The Swiss specialist put the investment costs for this variant at 13.2 million euros.

The number of visitors would remain roughly at today's level, he estimated the annual subsidy requirement at around 627,000 euros (today 500,000 euros).

That would mean that 8.96 euros would have to be paid from the public purse for each visitor.

Variation 2/3

The next two variants hardly differ structurally, only in their basic orientation.

Studer described these variants as “an expanded range of sports, games and getting used to the water”.

The large pool is to be expanded to six lanes, plus the "Vario pool" described in variant 1 with a lifting floor.

In addition, a toddler pool would be installed to attract young families as a target group.

Part of the concept would also be a diving platform with a 1-meter board and a 3-meter platform.

The advantage of both variants would be that "four to five exercise units would be possible at the same time," says the Swiss.

In addition, fun and games would be made possible for toddlers.

The presented variants 2 and 3 differ from each other only in their basic orientation.

Variant 2 - like variant 1 - would primarily aim to provide good conditions for school and club sports.

Variant 3 would focus more on "normal" swimming pool visitors in order to improve the income situation.

According to rough estimates, variant 2 would cost around 19.5 million euros and require an annual grant of 824,000 euros.

But since it would enable a significantly increasing number of visitors to around 110,000 bathers per year, the subsidy would be around 2.50 euros per visitor.

The construction of variant 3 would be slightly more expensive due to the larger changing room capacities that would be necessary because school lessons and normal visitor traffic should take place in parallel.

The talk was of 20.1 million euros and an annual subsidy requirement of 918,000 euros.

Since up to 130,000 visitors per year are expected at the same time, the per capita subsidy would be even lower than for variant 2, according to Studer, who was unable to give a specific number.

Variation 4

According to his report, variant 4 would attract most visitors - up to 140,000 guests per year.

But that would require high investments.

To achieve these numbers, Studer planned a large pool with five lanes, a variable pool, an additional learner pool, a toddler pool, a separate pool for a diving platform and a slide pool.

While the number of schoolchildren and club athletes would remain almost the same in all variants, variant 4 would still attract 80,000 paying bathers, predicted Studer, whose company itself operates six thermal baths at five locations in Germany.

But that would cost a lot of money.

The construction of variant 4 alone is estimated at around 25 million euros.

In addition, there would be an annual subsidy requirement of around 1.1 million euros.

Why so much?

"With all variants, the energy costs increase in line with the size of the planned bathroom," says Studer.

The larger the hall, the higher the energy costs.

Personnel costs would not increase to the same extent.

Nevertheless, the subsidy requirement per bather would be EUR 3.08 higher than with option 2.

The space requirement

Florian Steinbach, Head of Construction and Property Management at the District Office, poured some water into the wine for all the variant plans.

At the location of today's indoor swimming pool, a replacement is only possible in today's size.

If you want to build larger, - i.e. with all variants except the first - you will not be able to avoid finding another location for the indoor swimming pool that is within walking distance.

The property, the building to which the Jahn gymnasium is attached and the parking spaces currently belong to the Weilheim-Schongau district.

There would be no space on the existing site for the larger variants.

The debate

In the debate that followed the presentation of the individual variants, the Weilheim city councils campaigned for the partnership between the city and the district to be maintained.

Alfred Honisch (Greens) tried to nail down the district administrator Andrea Jochner-Weiß: "When I hear her like that, I recognize the tendency for the district to say: We stand by the indoor pool and its school use," he said.

And with that bit of granite at Jochner-Weiß: "The general willingness to contribute financially to the construction and operation of a new Weilheim indoor swimming pool has never been discussed in the district council," she said.

But he immediately added: "We could also do school swimming if we would take the students from the Weilheim area by bus to the existing pools in the area."

The argument that an indoor swimming pool would strengthen tourism, which in turn would be reflected in the revenue at the pool hall, was put forward.

The Swiss expert Stefan Studer refuted this: “The hotel trade in Weilheim certainly benefits from the fact that there is a weather-independent bathing facility in the city.

However, tourists play a subordinate role in the income of an indoor swimming pool. ”Above all, one has to concentrate on potential customers in the direct catchment area - Studer said 60,000 people.

Marion Lunz-Schmieder (CSU) tried to argue primarily with the issue of "justice".

She wanted to know how much the district had paid for the baths in Schongau, Peißenberg and Penzberg.

The answer came immediately from the other side of the room where the district committee was sitting: "Zero euros".

What if the public utility company built and operated the new indoor swimming pool?

The proposal by Tillman Wahlefeld (BfW), who said that the municipal utilities could take over the construction and operation of the indoor swimming pool, was discussed more seriously.

Expert Studer said it was quite common to run such a model of cross-subsidization.

The Stadtwerke would take over the current losses and thus make less taxable profit.

But that must be legally clarified in detail if there is general willingness.

He said that realistically, if everything goes smoothly, the new indoor pool could open in five years.

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2020-10-22

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