In the town hall of Wartenberg, it's actually far too cramped for everyday work.
There are many ideas, the planning for expansion is now being pushed.
Wartenberg – The town hall of the administrative community (VG) Wartenberg is bursting at the seams. A needs assessment revealed that more than 1,400 square meters would be needed for the municipal administration to run optimally. However, there is only 911 square meters of usable space - so there are almost 500 missing. The narrowness brings other disadvantages: long distances for visitors to the citizens' office in the back of the town hall or difficult conditions for concentrated work in the open-plan offices. Planner Franz Pezold presented solutions to this problem on Tuesday evening at the community meeting of the VG in the Langenpreising school gymnasium.
The third floor has so far been fully rented and could provide 220 square meters of new space for the town hall employees.
There are plans for this area from 20 years ago, the expert said: "It was not looked at more closely afterwards because it was not used."
In addition to the finance department, the building authority is currently on the second floor.
According to Pezold's ideas, this should go all the way up: "We can leave the layout of the apartments almost the same, only one or the other wall has to go." Copy rooms or kitchenettes could be created from the bathrooms.
In order to use the top area, however, a new escape stairway is needed as a second escape route: “Significantly more people will use these areas.
Such a staircase could be built on the back wall of the elevator shaft.”
The areas that become free on the second floor would be taken over by the finance department on the one hand, and on the other hand the two IT employees could also find a place there.
While nothing should happen on the first floor apart from small changes for an escape route, Pezold envisions an open entrance area for the ground floor: "A citizens' office with a half-open counter could be created." But so far that's just an idea.
Because the meeting room for the Wartenberg market – it is actually the foyer of the town hall – also poses space problems after the increase to 20 market council members, the planner also dealt with this. Constant conversion measures before each meeting also cause a great deal of effort there, since the room is otherwise used for other purposes. A possible solution can be found in the adjoining building: “A hall with 120 square meters is possible there. However, building law issues would have to be clarified beforehand.” Because the outbuilding is on the property boundary, the necessary spacing could thwart the plan. However, Pezold was in good spirits that the project can be approved.
With the relocation of the meeting room, more space would be freed up on the ground floor of the main building, which could be used for meetings, for example.
With the outbuilding, a total of 1265 square meters would be available, almost as much as determined in the needs analysis.
The planner emphasized that it is currently only an interim report on the feasibility study.
The deputy community chairman Christian Pröbst, who is also the mayor of Wartenberg, said: "Today we are signaling whether we want to pursue the whole thing further.
Then it goes to the Wartenberg market town council, and there we see how it can be financed.” The first step has already been taken on the third floor – the tenants have been given notice.
"Now we want to take the second step."
The question of costs came up at the meeting.
Pezold struggled in the face of uncertain cost increases, but it could hover around €1.5 million overall.
In the end, there was a unanimous result for the study.
At the same time, the community assembly commissioned the Wartenberg market to start the planning work and the structural implementation.
Bernd Heinzinger