The old fire station east of the town hall in Neubiberg has already been demolished. On Tuesday, the official starting signal for the new town hall will be given with the groundbreaking, i.e. the expansion and renovation of the previous building. Citizens and administrative staff should be happy, as it has long been known that more space is needed in the central building of the municipality. But the project was controversial for a long time, mainly for reasons of cost.
What the Neubibergers now expect is a modern, compact, sustainable building. The project is being planned by Spreen Architekten and the landscape architecture firm Terra Nova, which won first place in the realization competition. A one-story low-rise building with meeting rooms will be attached to the old town hall to the east, which will be connected to a three-story administration building offset to the south. With its gabled roof, it picks up on the structure of the old town hall.
There will be 30 parking spaces in an underground car park. Because it was important to the committee that the environment was taken into account during construction, a hybrid construction made of wood and reinforced concrete will be built, with photovoltaic systems on the roof. The open spaces will also be redesigned. In front of the town hall there should be a water element like a water feature. According to Mayor Thomas Pardeller (CSU), the expected costs are now 22.8 million euros. Among other things, the fact that foundations were drawn in the town hall plans, which were not available, had an effect on the costs. But even this number is not set in stone, because at a meeting of the special committee for the administration building in May, it already became clear that price increases are to be expected in view of the war in Ukraine – especially for materials such as cement products or wood, for which supply chains are affected are.
The old town hall is bursting at the seams.
(Photo: Claus Schunk)
Mayor Pardeller is happy that “we can finally get started,” as he says. “It is imperative that we can offer sustainable and modern jobs for administrative staff.” An advantage is that everything is then again centrally located on the town hall square; that is also good for the citizens. The administration is currently divided between the house for further education and the office building at the S-Bahn station.
At the end of 2019 it was still unclear when the town hall project would continue. Because with a majority of the Greens and the CSU in the municipal council in October 2019 – still in the days of the then mayor Günter Heyland (free voters) – the plans were stopped; mainly because the project was considered too expensive for the 26 million euros that were available at the time. Finally, with Thomas Pardeller as the new mayor, the plans were once again turned upside down. Among other things, the extension building was shortened and the underground car park was reduced in size. In July last year, the municipal council then voted unanimously for the new draft that is now in force.
According to the schedule, the expansion and renovation of the town hall will start this August – preparatory work has already been carried out. The start of construction for the shell including reinforced concrete work is planned for November, for the timber construction in June 2023. This will be followed by the open spaces. The municipality currently assumes that the work will continue until the end of 2024.