The imposing building with its wooden paneling stands on the school campus on Georg-Kerschensteiner-Straße in the Riemerling district of Hohenbrunn with a certain grandeur. Next door is the sports hall, which has already been completed but is not yet in use, followed in direct succession by the buildings of the renovated elementary school and the Carl Steinmeier Middle School, which was completed in 2019 – all buildings equipped with a characteristic, homely wooden facade.
The new indoor pool is still surrounded by a construction fence, warning signs indicate that the area is under camera surveillance. The ventilation system can already be seen on the outside, the main entrance has been designed and the swimming pools are finished inside, the 25-metre training pool with six lanes and the teaching pool, which will have a variable floor. Standing water is currently being used to check whether everything is tight.
On the upper floor there are spacious training rooms, for example for dance groups, a climbing wall, rooms for the TSV, such as offices and conference rooms, as well as the wing for lunchtime supervision. “The building will be really beautiful and we can certainly all be very proud of this sports campus,” says Mayor Stefan Straßmair (CSU). Completion is “on its last legs, but of course there is still a lot to do here”. The sports hall and swimming pool will then go into operation together when all approvals, including those relating to fire protection, have been completed.
In concrete terms, this means that the opening will be pushed back a bit, after it had been assumed until well into last year that bathing operations would be able to start in March 2022 at the latest. But the construction work was delayed again and again, which was also due to the temporarily unavailable materials due to the pandemic; Now they are to be completed in the summer, and Straßmair expects them to be operational at the start of the new school year in September.
But not only the schools in the area are eagerly waiting to be able to offer swimming lessons again: Above all, the swimming department of TSV Hohenbrunn, the Riemerlinger Haie, can hardly wait for the opening of the pool. The sharks have been stranded for a year and a half now. Back then, in November 2020, came the second major lockdown due to the corona pandemic, the municipal council finally decided to finally close the pool, which was hardly operational due to its age, and it has now been demolished. The new school sports field will be built at its previous location by this autumn.
The water is already standing: The training pool with the six lanes is currently being tested to see if everything is leakproof.
(Photo: Claus Schunk)
Lowerable floor: The teaching pool is technically state-of-the-art.
(Photo: Claus Schunk)
Brand new: the cubicle section of the indoor pool.
(Photo: Claus Schunk)
“You can say that we went through a valley of tears,” says Moritz Harteneck, the new swimming department head. “But it’s nice that things are looking up again, we’re positive about the future.” The past few years have been tough for the nationally successful club, which in 2013 provided the German championship relay in the women’s 4 x 100 meter freestyle and swam for years with its men’s and women’s teams in the national leagues. Due to the dilapidation of the old indoor pool, which has had to close at least temporarily since the end of 2013, coupled with the restrictions imposed by Corona, things went downhill for the sharks: people were constantly looking for water times in other communities, the number of members fell significantly, the group of competitive swimmers also became smaller and smaller: from the 120 athletes there are now only about 20. And from the peak of December 2016, when the department had a total of more than 1,400 members, only about half remain. “I’m sure that we can reach our old level again very quickly in the new pool and without corona restrictions,” says Harteneck.
His predecessor as head of division, Steffen Lenz, resigned from his position in February, and his daughter Jette, who is one of the most talented German freestyle swimmers, switched to the federal base in Heidelberg in autumn 2021. Because other ambitious officials such as sporting director Peter Lehmann also left the club, there are many indications that the Haie are getting a new basic direction: “My primary goal is not that we swim in the Bundesliga, we want a good balance between performance and and mass sport,” says department head Harteneck. Having top swimmers in the club is important because the best and most committed coaches can often be recruited from their parents, Harteneck continues. But popular sport for young people and adults, special programs for refugees and the “Ozone Tigers”, a swimming group for people with disabilities, are also important fields of activity for the Haie.
But the priority, the Haie boss and the mayor agree, is that swimming courses for the children can finally start again. Mayor Straßmair himself learned to swim in the old indoor pool, one reason why he always campaigned for the construction of a new indoor pool in the debates with the municipal council right from the start. The arguments in the committee were fierce at the time. While a number of local councilors were enthusiastic about the idea of building a brand new pool, others criticized the outrageously expensive project. Such as the Green Martina Kreder-Strugalla, who compared the plan in the crucial meeting in July 2017 with a “jump from a ten-meter tower into a 50-centimeter deep pool”. Because the costs are immense: If at that time one assumed 21.7 million euros for investments in the indoor swimming pool, sports hall and lunchtime care, the calculations are now in the direction of 25 million euros. According to Mayor Straßmair’s estimates from a finance committee meeting at the end of March, there are also operating costs of 4000 euros – per day! When asked by the SZ, Straßmair said that the exact amount “cannot yet be predicted due to the energy prices”.
Admission prices and occupancy times have not been finally decided
The municipality is currently burdened by numerous investments, such as the “Hohenbrunn West” residential and secondary school building, the renovation of the town hall, the “Am Hölzl” construction project and the forthcoming new construction of a festival barn. It would be necessary to at least partially compensate for the enormous expenses caused by the bathroom. A considerable part of this comes from school swimming, even in the old pool, after an increase in May 2016, the municipality demanded a fee of four euros per pupil. For the new pool, the administration has considered a model for club swimming, which has not yet been approved by the municipal council. It stipulates that every Haie member must purchase a discounted annual ticket based on their age. If non-members take part in courses offered by TSV, they also have to pay for admission in addition to the course fees, but it is then possible to buy a discounted ten-ticket. And then there are the entrance fees, which everyone who comes to swim during the opening hours has to pay. Four euros are planned as the normal rate for two hours of use of the pool, children under the age of six should have free admission, six to 14 year olds pay two euros, and there should also be a reduced rate of three euros, for example for 14 to 18 year old schoolchildren, Students, the disabled, seniors over 65 and those on welfare. Annual tickets usually cost 200 euros, and a ten-ticket should cost 36 euros at the normal rate.
The administration will take another close look at the model after the recent debate in the finance committee. But even if adjustments are made, this income is by no means cost-covering – no surprise for Straßmair: “We already expected the losses that such a swimming pool always produces in advance.”
Noble equipment: On the upper floor of the swimming pool there are spacious training rooms, but also conference rooms for the TSV officials.
(Photo: Claus Schunk)
It is also still unclear to what extent the public will be able to enjoy the pool at all, because from Monday to Friday it will largely be reserved for school swimming until 4 p.m. It currently looks as if the sharks can use the entire pool or at least four of the six lanes, especially in the late afternoon and evening and on Saturdays. Sunday, two early slots (Monday and Thursday, 6 a.m. to 8 a.m.), Wednesday afternoon and two lanes each on Tuesday and Friday evening are currently open to the public all day. One thing is clear: the longer you open the pool to everyone, the greater the income from entry. But on the other hand, the operating costs also increase due to the wages for cashiers and lifeguards. The shared use by the club and the public, on the other hand, has the advantage that the Haie could provide the staff on a voluntary basis. For Harteneck, it is also important to find sensible regulations when using them at the same time: “It makes little sense to let seniors in the pool next to competitive swimmers.” You are in good conversations. The mayor refers to the municipal council, which will decide on the times of use. “For me, the club work is also very valuable,” says Straßmair. After all, “a lot of citizens would swim in the club” or at least attend its courses. This is especially true for many children.
The Café Auszeit wants to be more than a kiosk: a meeting place for the people of Riemerlingen
Quite independently of all these debates, the restaurateurs Mario Jugenheimer and Thomas Langwieder are preparing for the start of their “Café Auszeit” in the new indoor pool. A license and tax number have been applied for, a Facebook page has been set up – the duo is looking forward to the start: “We can get started at any time,” says Jugenheimer, who is reluctant to comment on the high running costs of the pool: “Of course we can’t get that out either , our lease is really very fair.” But the new location has to make a name for itself first, the two hosts want to develop their concept independently of the sports campus: “If we only concentrate on the swimming pool audience, it will be difficult, we want to develop our own clientele independently.” , says Jugenheimer, who is primarily concerned with working cost-effectively and establishing the restaurant: “We don’t want to drive the Porsche away from here in four years.”
The emergence of the café was a bit bumpy. After the municipal council decision in November 2021, it took a long time for the contracts to be signed and sealed. The planning of the kitchen also had to be improved, after all the duo’s concept envisages something more than just a kiosk that sells snacks, ice cream and drinks. There should be an inexpensive lunch menu, also with take-away dishes. In addition, the “Auszeit” is to become a meeting place for the people of Riemerling in the evening. Mayor Straßmair says he is looking forward to the new gastronomy. After a revision of the planning, “good solutions were achieved together to get the most out of the premises”.