Do you need it? Regensburg is planning further underground parking in the heart of the old town

In the Regensburg city council, opinions differ on a possible underground car park on Emmeramsplatz.

According to current estimates, it will cost 6.8 million euros.

Now you are looking for investors. 

Regensburg - The Emmeramsplatz in Regensburg * is something special.

Best location in the old town, right next to the Thurn und Taxis park and castle.

The historical statue of Bishop Johann Michael von Sailer can be admired there.

And yet the whole thing is just a parking lot so far.

The Regensburg city council agrees that this is absurd and that the quality of stay there has to be improved.

But opinions differ on how.

Regensburg: Underground - Modern cylinder-shaped park

The coalition is now planning to move stationary traffic downstairs and is planning an underground car park. A feasibility study was commissioned as early as summer 2020. This now comes to the conclusion that the construction of such a garage with 120 parking spaces is technically possible. The automated parking system in cylinder shape therefore only needs a small "transfer area" on the surface, into which the cars are driven. They should then be lifted into the parking hatches using an elevator system. Ten underground parking levels are to be created in this way. The city planning office expressly suggests equipping the system completely with e-charging infrastructure.

City Councilor Benedikt Suttner (ÖDP) “with the best will in the world cannot imagine” that all of this should only cost 6.8 million euros, as the city planning office explained in a committee meeting this week.

Suttner also doubts that the parking garage is even needed.

And he's not alone in this.

Irmgard Freihoffer (left *) and Maria Simon (green *) are also skeptical.

With a view to climate change in particular, they question whether an old town calmed down by individual motorized traffic needs another underground car park.

Underground car park in Regensburg: Build a subsidy business yourself?

But in the coalition of the SPD, CSU, Free Voters, FDP and CSB, such concerns do not meet with any response.

Planning consultant Christine Schimpfermann affirmed that the costs were calculated seriously and “to the best of my knowledge and belief”.

During the Second World War, there was an approximately five-meter-deep extinguishing water basin on Emmeramsplatz, which, according to the administration, offered the "unique opportunity" to build such a garage there.

The probability of archaeological finds is therefore estimated to be low.

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The design for an underground car park on Emmeramsplatz.

© City of Regensburg

Still, the question of how the whole thing should be financed remains.

According to the calculation, the production costs per parking space are more than 56,000 euros.

The engineering structure accounts for almost two thirds of the costs, the rest is divided between the system technology and the e-charging infrastructure.

This results in monthly costs for a parking space of 240 euros.

According to Stadtwerk, parking space rental costs of 150 euros in the district are realistic.

90 euros would therefore have to be subsidized under certain circumstances.

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Underground car park in the heart of Regensburg's old town: investor wanted

There are three possible financing options for the administration. The favorite: You can find an investor or provider who wants to build and operate the garage without the involvement of the city. Only if this does not work do you either want to think about the city's participation in the project or, if necessary, finance the underground car park entirely on your own.

Günther Riepl (Free Voters) sees “what we are discussing now, actually not exciting”. With the feasibility study, the city will initially only “approach people who say: I like building this because I have so many Rolls Royce and Porsche drivers in the old town who want to be able to afford it when I rent or sell. ”But this objection also goes unheard.

According to the resolution, an expression of interest process is now being carried out to find out whether there are companies that can imagine a realization.

And with what asking price.

Everything else will come at some point.

So far, no funds have been entered for the project in the urban investment plan.