The university building used to be part of a mine where ore was extracted until 1967. At the beginning of the 1990s, it was converted and restored at great expense. The result was a spacious campus area with state-of-the-art facilities. In 1999, an extension to the university was completed with funding from the German Federal Environmental Foundation. Frank Klingebiel, Lord Mayor of the city of Salzgitter, emphasized that the investment in the university location had also paid off for the city of Salzgitter: "The university with its 2,500 students is now an indispensable institution." Studies began in 1994 with an initial 28 students.
Klingebiel continued: "In terms of structural policy, the city's decision to pre-finance and co-finance the Calbecht University of Applied Sciences site from municipal funds was the right one. The rent never covered the costs. After all these years, the costs for building maintenance, which the city has to pay as the owner, are increasing. The takeover by the state is therefore also economically advantageous for the city, but should have taken place in 2004. I am therefore grateful to Finance Minister Schneider that he is now fulfilling the state's contractual obligation."
The agreement also has advantages for Ostfalia University as the user of the buildings. "Combining the rented properties with the state-owned properties of Ostfalia on the university campus makes sense and gives the university location additional development opportunities," explained the President of Ostfalia, Prof. Dr. Rosemarie Karger. With the purchase, additional small areas will be transferred in order to round off the site. This makes it possible to create space for urgently needed parking spaces, for which an unneeded commercial hall would have to be demolished. The university has already received an annual increase of 460,000 euros from the state budget for building maintenance from this year.
Ownership of the land and the three buildings is to be transferred to the state at the beginning of 2018. The purchase price of around 8 million euros was determined on the basis of an appraisal by the Braunschweig-Wolfsburg Property Valuation Committee. A good 47,000 square meters will be purchased in total.
