Financial distress shatters dreams: Town hall move to the Stump meadow not possible

Created: 12/16/2022, 5:30 am

By: Martin Becker

The current town hall was occupied in 1983 and around 90 employees currently work there.

© Stefan Weinzierl

In Unterhaching, people are toying with the idea of ​​moving the town hall to the Stumpfwiese.

A bold plan that was discussed in the summer and was shelved for the time being due to a lack of money.

Unterhaching

– Can you, yes, should you let such an opportunity pass you by?

That's roughly how the argumentation in the Unterhachinger town hall sounded.

This itself, which we moved into almost 40 years ago, was supposed to move – to the Stump Meadow.

A bold plan that was discussed behind closed doors in the summer and was shelved for the time being due to a lack of money.

The mind game is obviously not over yet.

Specifically, it is about the former office building of Sport-Scheck, located between Biberger- and Walter-Paetzmann-Straße.

The sporting goods retailer with a nationwide branch network had moved its administration from Unterhaching at the beginning of 2022 and bundled it at the headquarters in Munich.

The property, which cost more than 20 million euros, was on the market - and the municipality of Unterhaching indicated its interest in buying the building complex.

Object multifunctional

"It's about 6,500 square meters of office space in a highly attractive location," says City Hall spokesman Simon Hötzl when asked by Münchner Merkur.

"If such a multifunctional property is on the market, we as a community must have a discussion free of ideologies and values ​​as to whether a strategic expansion of our properties makes sense here."

This discussion was already held in June and July, in a non-public meeting the municipal council opposed the purchase project.

Now, in the December meeting of the municipal council, the CSU parliamentary group leader, Korbinian Rausch, cautiously hinted at the bold and initially discarded idea.

In 2022, a “violent rollercoaster of emotions and finances was observed” in the town hall, said Rausch.

Unterhaching "just got the curve" in the debate about the purchase of "Germany's most expensive lawn" at the outdoor pool;

then, "in the middle of the year", the "debate about a new real estate project for the administration for tens of millions - just averted".

In October, Rausch calculated, "the looping finally came with budget freeze, crisis, austerity measures".

The purchase of the Sport-Scheck building was already off the table.

The idea behind the purchase plans

"It was not foreseeable at the time that the municipal finances would develop so dramatically," says Simon Hötzl.

The town hall spokesman explains the idea behind the purchase plans: “We want to combine uses, for example the VHS, but also after-school care, which municipalities are obliged to provide from 2026 and for which we have to prepare ourselves.

We obviously need space.”

On the other hand: "In the current town hall, which was moved into in 1983 and designed for growth, there is no acute lack of space," emphasizes Hötzl.

At that time, 30 people worked in the core administration, today there are about 90. "The town hall is full", but due to home office solutions and the outsourcing of the faction rooms, there are currently "enough space reserves".

The Unterhaching town hall is “a beautiful building and was never up for grabs”.

Relocation would now be priceless

At the moment, relocating the town hall would be unaffordable anyway, but the idea (municipal administration and VHS plus student care on the Stumpfwiese, new use of the current town hall) is secretly fermenting.

"This very attractive commercial property," says Hötzl about the Sport-Scheck building, "has still not been sold." “Buying real estate is probably an issue.

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Fancy a voyage of discovery?

My space

As a new location for the community under discussion: the abandoned Sport-Scheck building.

© Stefan Weinzierl