New district building ready: Moves start in April

After about 2 years of construction, the new administrative building of the district has been completed. The new complex will house the specialised services of health, youth and social affairs.

24 March 2023

After about two years of construction, the new administrative building of the Waldeck-Frankenberg district on Südring is almost complete. The new complex will house the specialised services of health, youth and social affairs - but due to the capacities freed up in the district hall, it will enable many specialised services of the district administration to be more spatially united again in the administrative district on Südring.

The official inauguration is to be celebrated at a company party in the summer. From mid-April, however, the moves to the new administration building, which is located directly next to the Korbach district hall and in which the district has invested around 16.5 million euros, will already begin.

190 workplaces, 6,000 square metres
In recent years, external office space - both in Frankenberg and in Korbach or Dorfitter - had to be rented again and again to cover the necessary space requirements for the employees of the district administration. With the move into the new barrier-free building, which offers a total of 190 office workplaces, the urgently needed balance is now being created on around 6,000 square metres. The new space programme was developed by the architects and planners together with the district's department heads and heads of department.

Arcade connects new building with district hall
Construction of the project started in 2021. A three-storey building was erected in hybrid construction - i.e. made of wood, concrete and steel - with many floor-to-ceiling window elements. The rooms were arranged in three structures. The reinforced concrete core contains the functional rooms for technology, sanitary facilities and kitchenettes. The office and meeting rooms were planned around it. Two staircases and lifts connect the different levels. The façade is made of pre-fabricated wood cladding. The surrounding balconies serve to maintain the façade and clean the windows, as well as to attach a trellis construction that provides support for climbing plants, which in turn will provide natural shade. The new building is connected to the district hall by a covered arcade. With a green roof including a photovoltaic system and an air-source heat pump, the new complex also features high environmental standards and energy efficiency. New parking facilities have also been created around the building complex.

One of the specialised services is located in each of the three buildings, so that visitors have a clear orientation within the building. The first point of contact for them will be the information office, which is located in the foyer with a back office and counter in front. Visitors can register there and will be picked up by the staff for their appointments in the corresponding meeting rooms or offices. Therefore, there are also several spacious waiting areas on the ground floor to accommodate public traffic. "Within the framework of the project, we have taken appropriate funds into our hands in order to construct a citizen-friendly and service-oriented office building at the location in Korbach, which also takes into account the demands of the new modern working world," says District Administrator Jürgen van der Horst. "Furthermore, the new building enables us to centralise our services at the location."

Services will be bundled in the administrativedistrict
The move to the new premises will start as early as April: First, the district's health service will move into the new building, which is currently still located in an outdated administrative building at Am Kniep in Korbach. The former building will then be abandoned. Then, by the beginning of July, the social affairs and youth services, which are currently still located in the district administration building in Korbach, will move. As a result of the capacities freed up in the district hall, the outsourced specialised services will return to the main building on Südring after the rooms there have been renovated.

"We have developed a targeted space programme for the district administration, which will enable us in future to bundle the majority of the currently still decentralised services for citizens at one location," says First District Councillor Karl-Friedrich Frese. "In addition, the investment will enable us to sell old properties and terminate tenancies, so that a not insignificant refinancing can be expected in the medium term." In addition, there will be a central contact point for the services and counselling offered by the district in the authorities' quarter in future.

For the transitional period between the moves, the district asks for your understanding that there may be delays or impairments in the accessibility of the specialised services. "We have planned the moves in such a way that the individual steps fit together well logistically," says Dirk Wilke, deputy head of the building management department. "However, one or two challenges can still arise on site, which we then have to solve spontaneously." As soon as the relocations start, the district will therefore again provide separate information about which specialised services can be reached when and how. "We are working flat out to ensure that everything goes smoothly and quickly.