Imperial Post Office Giessen

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Imperial Post Office Giessen
The Alte Post in 2014

The Alte Post in 2014

Data
place to water
Builder Princely Thurn and Taxis postal administration
Architectural style neo-gothic
Construction year 1863
Coordinates 50 ° 34 '50.5 "  N , 8 ° 39' 54"  E Coordinates: 50 ° 34 '50.5 "  N , 8 ° 39' 54"  E
Middle gable of the Alte Post with eagle relief and traces of decay (2011)

The Imperial Post Office in Giessen , central Hesse , built in 1863 as the Grand Ducal Post Office of the Princely Thurn and Taxis ' postal administration , has been vacant since the Federal Post Office moved out in 1994. The Alte Post, which is protected as a cultural monument , has been privately owned since 1998, and its preservation and use are the subject of public discussions. In the vernacular of Giessen, the building is known as "the old post office".

style

Built in the south of the city on the Seltersberg neo-Gothic , originally from a central part and two side gables - projections existing building was expanded in 1898 symmetrically while maintaining the historicist style to the northeast. The building, made of red sandstone blocks, has three stepped gables , the windows on the first floor have eaves strips borrowed from the English Gothic . The building is a cultural monument for artistic, urban and historical reasons.

history

The facility was expanded between 1898 and 1925 to include the telegraph office, which is now also a listed building. In 1994 the Bundespost moved into a new building exactly opposite in Bahnhofstrasse. In 1998 an entrepreneurial family from Giessen bought the Alte Post from Deutsche Post AG , which initially only used the building sporadically and has not used it at all since 2000. In December 2012, the sidewalk in front of the Alte Post was closed for the first time because the crumbling facade posed a danger to pedestrians. In January 2013 the magistrate decided to include the Alte Post in the “development concept for the station environment”; As a result, the city created a framework through the "urban redevelopment area" around the station, which can happen to the building in order to force the owner to renovate or sell. The Alte Post was scaffolded for the first time in February 2013. In 2014, the expert committee for real estate values ​​assessed the possible uses and their profitability on the basis of a housing plan presented by the owner in 2012 and came to the conclusion that this would pay off. In July 2015, the city of Gießen considered making its own purchase offer for the Alte Post for the first time. An expropriation is only possible if an offer corresponding to the market value has been rejected by the owner. At the beginning of 2016, the city made the owner an offer to buy in the amount of 1.2 million euros, which the owner rejected. In January 2017, a pedestrian tunnel was first built to protect passers-by from falling parts of the facade. In August 2017, the entire front of the Alte Post was scaffolded in order to have static investigations carried out on the condition of the walls and facade. In December 2017, the city had all sensitive facade areas spanned with nets in order to secure loose components.

present

The threat of decay and the possible uses of the building have been the subject of media, politics and citizenship since the Federal Post Office moved out in 1994; the ideas range from gastronomy and student living space to culture and museum use. To this end, a citizens' initiative was founded in July 2017 around Jan-Patrick Wismar and Peter Eschke. An online petition from this citizens' initiative reached over 500 supporters, an online grouping in the social network "Facebook" reached thousands of members, the struggle for the Alte Post became a "Gießen event 2017" according to a survey by the city editor of the Gießener Allgemeine Zeitung at the turn of the year 2017/2018 appointed. In mid-February 2018, the Shobeiri family from Giessen agreed to sell the property to the Frankfurt property developer aaa Aktiengesellschaft Allgemeine anlageverwaltung . The plan was to use the building for commercial purposes; possibly as a hotel, catering business and for renting out apartments. However, due to the insufficient load-bearing capacity of the ceilings, aaa made use of a withdrawal option. The ensemble has been owned by private entrepreneur Kai Laumann from the Giessen area since October 2018. The end of the renovation of the building, which began in April 2019, is planned for summer 2020.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Armin Pfannmüller: Alte Post occupies people the most . In: Gießener Allgemeine, January 6, 2018
  2. ↑ Olympic medalist buys Alte Post in Giessen. February 15, 2018, accessed October 14, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Alte Post: Here we go. April 12, 2019, accessed October 14, 2019 .

Web links

Commons : Kaiserliches Postamt Gießen  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files