Delay and high costs: ten questions about the new town hall
Created: 07/20/2022, 11:45 am
It's not quite finished yet: the new Gröbenzell town hall.
Next Friday, however, citizens can look at it at an open day and learn all sorts of things about it.
(Archive photo) © Weber
It was a gigantic project costing 23 million euros: the new Gröbenzell town hall was completed a year ago.
Now it will be ceremoniously presented at an open day on Friday.
The building is not without controversy in the town.
Not least because of the high costs.
Here is an overview of the career.
Gröbenzell
– "Anyone who had previously grumbled about waste was now happy about the beautiful building." Anne-Lise von Branca wrote these words, but long ago, namely on the occasion of Gröbenzell's tenth birthday in 1962. Gröbenzell's first town hall had at that time Cost 157,000 Deutschmarks.
That's a major difference from today.
But maybe next Friday, July 22, there will be similar compliments as back then.
On this day, Mayor Martin Schäfer invites everyone to the open day.
Maybe some questions will be answered there.
Why was a new town hall necessary?
The first voices that Gröbenzell needed a new town hall came up more than ten years before the new building was decided.
The old building consisted of three parts, two of them from the 1950s and the middle part from the 1970s.
All three buildings were in need of renovation.
Offices were too small and too few and also did not comply with the workplace ordinance.
The building was not barrier-free, as the rooms had previously been used partly as apartments and partly as a doctor's office.
How and when was the decision made?
In 2012, the municipal council basically gave the green light to the town hall.
Three years later, it was decided to move to Danziger Strasse in order to enable a renovation with a new building or a completely new building.
Two months later, everyone in the municipal council agreed that Gröbenzell should get a completely new town hall.
Why wasn't the old building renovated?
The profitability calculation of a commissioned company had shown that a new building would be around 1.2 million euros cheaper than a renovation.
The refurbishment of the central part with new buildings to the right and left of it was given at 11.7 million euros.
However, the costs of around 10.4 million euros for a new town hall did not stop there.
And not at all: According to the current status, it is almost 23 million euros.
The new building turned out to be larger than expected.
This occupies the Gross Floor Area (GFA), which shows the area enclosed by exterior walls, including plasterwork.
The profitability calculation originally assumed 5,060 square meters – it ended up being 6,139 square meters, both including the underground car park.
How big was the delay?
In April 2017, Gröbenzell's mayor, Martin Schäfer, was still assuming a 20-month construction period and moving in at the end of 2019.
The new town hall was occupied in the summer of 2021, i.e. a year ago.
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Who designed the building?
To determine what the new town hall should look like, a Europe-wide architectural competition was announced.
The architects were free to integrate the town hall building from the 1950s into a new building.
The winner of the competition was the Stuttgart office of Behnisch Architekten.
What costs did you anticipate?
The Stuttgart architects created a design and a preliminary plan, which ended with a cost estimate of 17.6 million euros including a buffer of 1.8 million euros.
This cost estimate had increased by almost three million euros because the municipal council had decided, among other things, to build a walk-in roof terrace, plus plan a photovoltaic or ventilation system with moisture and heat recovery.
Why were there delays?
At the beginning of 2018, the entire three-part old town hall was demolished, on schedule.
But the shell construction was delayed.
Because only one offer was received for this work, which was also more than twice as high as the cost estimate.
The start of work on the shell therefore had to be postponed for months until autumn 2018.
The second offer, at 3.3 million euros, was below the first, but still a third above the estimate.
Nevertheless, the shell was awarded to the company.
The danger that another tender would have resulted in even higher costs was too great.
The increase in costs then continued in the other tenders, but these were rarely lower.
Is the town hall ready now?
In summer 2021 the time had come: The new building could be occupied.
However, the town hall has not yet been completely completed.
Among other things, the photovoltaic system, the outdoor facilities and the markings in the underground car park are missing.
Partly the lack of material is to blame.
How many offices are there for employees?
In the old town hall, employees had 34 single offices, ten double offices and one for five people on almost 1,600 square meters of usable space and 2,659 gross floor areas, making a total of 45. In the new town hall there are 102 employees.
37 single and 29 double offices were created.
There are 3272 square meters of usable space (about twice as much as before) and 4000 square meters of gross floor area (GFA) on the upper floors as well as 2180 square meters for the underground car park, archive, technology and registry.
There is also office space in the registration office for a total of six employees and at the information desk for four employees, who are not always on site at the same time.
All employees are currently accommodated, but not all double offices are occupied by two employees.
How about the parking?
There are 46 parking spaces in the underground car park and three more above ground.
In addition to the offices, a large and a small conference room, meeting rooms, a wedding room, a multifunctional room, filing system, archive, tea kitchens and toilets (also accessible to the public from outside), an underground car park and an accessible roof terrace have been created in the new building.
The public was able to view the roof terrace at the most recent music night and enjoy a concert at the same time.
The event was opened this year on the roof of the new town hall.
Viewing:
The open house is on Friday, July 22, from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Citizens can look at the construction plans and models, talk to architects and planners, watch a film about the demolition of the old town hall, and employees of the town hall are also available to answer questions.
Suzanne Schwind
You can find more current news from the district of Fürstenfeldbruck at Merkur.de/Fürstenfeldbruck.