District inaugurates new school building of the vocational schools

After almost two years of construction, the new school building for the Korbach and Bad Arolsen vocational schools has been completed. Now the district has officially inaugurated the building.

28 March 2023

After almost two years of construction, the new school building for the Korbach and Bad Arolsen vocational schools has been completed and will be put into operation at the beginning of the second school semester in 2022/2023. Now the district of Waldeck-Frankenberg has officially inaugurated the building, which replaces the former school site in Korbach's Klosterstraße.

Financing through cooperation between administration and investor
For organisational, pedagogical, technical and financial reasons, the district decided a few years ago, after careful consideration of all the facts, to abandon the branch in Klosterstraße and to build a replacement new building at the school centre on Kasseler Straße instead. The "planning, construction, financing and operation of the project was carried out for the first time within the framework of a PPP model. PPP stands for "Public Private Partnership" and means that a private company planned, built and financed the building and also operates it. In this case, it is the company Fechtelkord & Eggersmann from Marienfeld near Gütersloh, which was selected after a Europe-wide call for tenders by means of a negotiated procedure and participant competition and with the involvement of an auditor and a law firm. The district, as the school authority, has rented it for a certain period - in this case for 25 years. After that, the building becomes the property of the district.

2,800 square metres of space, 18 classrooms
Construction of the project started at the end of 2020. The new building is a three-storey building with 18 classrooms and three group rooms as open learning landscapes, an IT area and teacher support points on each floor. In addition, there are the necessary ancillary rooms, among other things for servers and technology, as well as for cleaning materials and WC facilities. The building is barrier-free and has a lift. The teaching areas are designed as so-called "learning landscapes", open areas that are accessible at all times and replace the conventional classrooms. The new building was completed in July 2022, and it was ready for use at the beginning of the school year 2022/2023. The old location of the vocational schools in Klosterstraße was sold and handed over to the new owner at the end of last year.

Background
Around 2,500 pupils are educated at the Korbach-Bad Arolsen vocational schools, of which around 900 are full-time pupils. The Korbach school is the central location. There is also a site in Bad Arolsen. Almost all trades and crafts are taught.