Big hole

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The administrator initiated the continuation of the construction work: The underground car park is already well developed here. (June 2015)
Condition of the construction pit for the August Fischer House in May 2014
Condition of the excavation in July 2011

The Great Hole (originally planned as the August Fischer House ) is a permanent construction site and a construction project for a commercial building in Kempten (Allgäu) with an estimated construction cost of 14 million euros. The planned completion was planned for autumn 2011. After a construction period of almost a year, construction work was stopped in spring 2011. Up until the summer of 2015 there was an excavation pit 18 meters deep, 37 meters long and 55 meters wide , which the population and the media refer to as "the big hole" or "shame hole". Other derisive names such as “swimming pool” or “first inner-city quarry pond” were also common because of the strong water flooding. In the meantime, some have called for the property to be filled in, expropriated or used.

In the summer of 2015, the city of Kempten completed the underground parking garage. The city used tax revenues of around three million euros for this. This money is to be brought back into the city coffers through a foreclosure sale or foreclosure . The construction site security costs the city of Kempten around 10,000 euros per month. At the end of April 2017, an agreement was reached between the city and creditors , so nothing stands in the way of the insolvency administrator's sale of the property.

The heirs of August Fischer , the former mayor of Kemptens, allegedly forbade the builders to use the name for the commercial building due to the incidents so far. In the meantime, the proper name “ Großer Loch ” has become common.

Planned building and retail concept

The four-storey building with the address Bahnhofstrasse 29 will have a usable area of 7000 square meters and a glass tower facing Mozartstrasse. The project, estimated at 14 million euros, should have a retail share of 700 to 3000 square meters, although according to the development plan of the city of Kempten, no downtown-relevant retail can be approved there. For an underground car park, the earth was excavated 18 meters deep and a rock rib in the subsoil was removed.

The city of Kempten has developed a retail concept for the city center, which includes the area from the directly neighboring Forum Allgäu (shopping center) in the south via the pedestrian zone Fischerstraße to Hildegardplatz with the St. Lorenz basilica and the prince-abbot's residence in the north. Outside this defined zone, city-center-relevant retail is not permitted under city law. Although there was a small amount of retail in the previous development at Bahnhofstrasse 29, the city administration no longer approves this in the new building because the property is outside ( development plan No. 264 “Westlich Forum Allgäu” ) the zone specified in the development plan.

history

Original development, around 2000
Advanced foundation work in 2011
State in July 2012

Pre-development

The client of the project is the Ritter & Kyburz GbR from Switzerland . The builders acquired the building and the land from Allianz SE . First discussions took place in 2007, after further discussions the building committee approved the first application (excluding retail) in August 2009. On April 1, 2010, the demolition permit for the previous development was granted. The demolition began immediately afterwards; the two buildings, the Allgäuer Hof from the middle of the 19th century and the Allianz House from 1950, were demolished within a few weeks by the construction company Geiger Unternehmensgruppe . Construction of the commercial building began in May. In the summer of 2010, the civil law corporation filed a legal action suit with the Bavarian Administrative Court , so that the development plan “Westlich Forum Allgäu”, in which the property is located and the retail trade is excluded, is repealed.

conflict

In spring 2011 construction work came to a standstill after the excavation pit for the underground car park had been excavated. There were rumors that the builders were no longer solvent, also because workers were not being paid. The Kempten city administration rejected the blame for the construction stoppage, as the builders had not applied for retail use and this was excluded from the start due to the development plan. In the early autumn of 2011, the last construction equipment, a building crane, was dismantled.

In January 2012, differently pronounced cracks were documented in neighboring buildings, such as the Alte Post (social building). Paths along the excavation sank, adjacent prefabricated garages shifted. The Technical University of Munich checked the open pit's suitability for winter. A month later, the construction site was secured by the city administration, the work (concrete guide walls), as well as the soon following expert and other security work, were billed to the property owner. In the same month, the builders had insulation installed on the shoring and flow pumps because of the inflowing groundwater . This should prevent the water from freezing in winter in order to prevent frost damage to the foundations.

Regulatory review suit and court decision

The original date for the norm review suit at the Higher Administrative Court in summer 2012 failed because the investors submitted a new brief. The pumping out of the water was later stopped and the pit has been full of water since then.

The next trial took place at the end of November 2012; the court declared the existing development plan ineffective in parts. The city administration was nevertheless given the opportunity to draw up a newly formulated development plan in order to continue to forbid any inner-city-relevant retail trade at the site of the August-Fischer-Haus. At the beginning of 2013, investors proposed a reduction in the size of the retail space in the planned construction, which did not lead to any change in the urban attitude.

Statics and construction site safety

In May 2013, experts from the Technical University of Munich discovered static defects in the construction pit; a larger security room is needed. Shortly thereafter, the Kemptens building authorities began to partially block roads and divert heavy goods vehicles in order to enlarge the safety zone around the "endangered" hole. The Berlin shoring allegedly posed a problem , whose anchoring heads, which reach deep into the ground, only have a certain duration. The city withdrew the special use permit for the anchor heads, as they are in the public ground. In the meantime, some citizens saw the city administration as the culprit for the misery, even speculating that the company Feneberg Lebensmittel is involved here, which partly belongs to the neighboring Forum Allgäu shopping center.

A report by investors in June 2013 proved the static uncertainty; however, no further security measures were commissioned. From mid-June 2013, the city administration announced that the streets around the excavation pit could no longer be used for any heavy goods vehicle - including local public transport. The heavy goods traffic was temporarily diverted via side streets.

The security measures, including the expert opinion, cost the city administration a total of 175,000 euros up to July 2013.

In the same month, the investors announced that they had moved their office from Kempten to the federal capital Berlin . The reasons for this are threats, threatening phone calls and damage to investors' vehicles by strangers.

On August 1st, an improved development plan was passed, which continues to prohibit downtown-relevant retail at the excavation site. A few days later, the security measures initiated by the city administration were ended. The Berlin shoring was secured by a head strap , the heavy goods traffic that was excluded in June was partially approved again around the excavation pit, so that city buses could also use their normal routes again.

Receivers, litigation and bankruptcy proceedings

In autumn 2013, the Kempten District Court appointed an administrator for the property. With this decision, the power of disposal of the GbR was largely transferred to the receivership, it would be possible here for the latter to commission the further construction. In December 2013, the investors from Switzerland could not be found under any German address, and the office established in Berlin in July 2013 could no longer be found under the names of the investors.

At a court hearing on June 5, 2014, the Swiss plaintiffs requested the suspension of all nine proceedings that they had initiated and complained to the court of bias . Both objections of the Swiss were rejected, the latter was even described as "illegal". At a further negotiation in July, various experts on the statics of the construction site are to be heard. Furthermore, the city of Kempten wants to have the building owners enforce the 600,000 euros that were paid out for the construction site security retrospectively in court, as, according to the city, they failed to meet their security obligations towards the public after several requests.

The next court hearing towards the end of July 2014 did not come to any judgment or agreement. In particular, it is unclear how the city of Kempten will get the money raised for securing the excavation pit. At the beginning of July 2014 it emerged that the city of Kempten should complete the underground car park with the consent of the investors' attorney. The city provided 2 million euros for financing, which is secured in the land register . With the decision of the local court of Kempten (Allgäu) on May 3, 2016, the insolvency proceedings were opened and, after several years of investigations, an insolvency administrator was appointed.

Public effect

In addition to an unofficial Facebook presence of the construction hole, the Süddeutsche Zeitung published an article about the construction project, in which it was compared with the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie and Berlin Brandenburg Airport . The Bavarian television reported in the evening show - The South in May 2013 about the excavation pit and the conflict. A month later, the same television station took up the emotionally charged conflict between the city administration and the investor again in the magazine quer as part of a report . In March 2017 there was another report in the magazine quer on the questionable 10th anniversary that addressed the hopelessness around the hole, for example, the mayor Thomas Kiechle (CSU) was not prepared to comment.

The local daily newspaper Allgäuer Zeitung reports on the incidents at regular intervals , as does the weekly newspaper Kreisbote . The comments in the online publications of the newspapers are primarily critical of the city administration.

The city administration reports on the latest news about the construction pit on the city's Facebook page and on its own website.

On April 1, 2019, Allgäu TV took up the topic in the news in order to cause confusion and laughter with satirical means ("News from the Kemptner Loch: Rare salamander changes plans"). The two actors Norman Graue and Nadine Schneider, who are known as founders and members of the improvisational theater group "Die Wendejacken", play Dr. Gerold Wilmersbacher from the State Association for Nature Conservation and the head of the State Building Authority in Munich, Katharina Borgmann, who want to stop construction due to the discovery of a rare species of salamander. The report can be viewed in the media library.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stefan Mayr: The hole in Kempten. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . January 9, 2013, p. 33.
  2. ↑ Stefanie Heckel: Big hole in the Bahnhofstrasse in Kempten: Who is to blame for the standstill?  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: allin.de, September 13, 2011, accessed on July 14, 2013.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.all-in.de  
  3. ↑ http://www.kempten.de/de/media/TOP2-091008-Beschluesse.pdf City of Kempten - resolution of the statutes
  4. ↑ Demolition work in the center of Kempten. In: geigergruppe.de, accessed on July 14, 2013.
  5. ↑ a b c d e f Stephan Michalik: Bahnhofstrasse 29, Kempten: Chronicle of a "big hole". ( Memento of the original from July 25, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: allin.de, June 14, 2013, accessed on July 14, 2013. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.all-in.de
  6. ↑ Construction pit protection Kempten 2012. ( Memento of the original from September 28, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: abbruch-beissner.de, accessed on July 14, 2013.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.abbruch-beissner.de
  7. ↑ Matthias Matz: No agreement in sight. The dispute continues. In: Kreisbote.de, March 1, 2013, accessed on July 14, 2013.
  8. ↑ Stefanie Heckel: City of Kempten already has bills over 175,000 euros for the "big hole". The financial hole in Bahnhofstrasse.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: allin.de, July 9, 2013, accessed on July 14, 2013.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.all-in.de  
  9. ↑ Big hole in Kempten: Swiss people move office to Berlin after threats. ( Memento of the original from July 23, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: allin.de, July 20, 2013, accessed on July 21, 2013. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.all-in.de
  10. ↑ "Big Hole": Buses are back to normal routes. In: kempten.de, August 5, 2013, accessed on August 12, 2013.
  11. ↑ Stefan Mayr: Crater at risk of collapse. In: sueddeutsche.de, June 5, 2014 (accessed June 16, 2014)
  12. ↑ Big hole: underground car park shell is to be completed. In: all-in.de, August 4, 2014.
  13. ↑ Already 31 interested parties . In: https://www.kreisbote.de . August 3, 2017 ( Kreisbote.de [accessed September 15, 2017]).
  14. ↑ Katharina Kraus: The big hole. (No longer available online.) Bavarian TV / Evening Show - The South, June 13, 2013, formerly in the original ; Retrieved May 22, 2013 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.br.de  
  15. ^ Elena Alvarez : Krater in Kempten. Fierce dispute over a construction pit. (No longer available online.) Bavarian TV / quer, June 13, 2013, formerly in the original ; Retrieved July 14, 2013 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.br.de  
  16. ↑ News - From the town hall. City of Kempten, accessed on July 14, 2013 .
  17. ↑ News from the Kemptner Loch: A rare salamander changes plans. Accessed November 8, 2019 (German).

Web links

Commons : August-Fischer-Haus  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 47 ° 43 ′ 16.7 ″  N , 10 ° 18 ′ 49.5 ″  E