Lord Mayor Frank Klingebiel provides information on the status of the plans for the new construction of the Wiesenschule elementary school and the daycare center planned for the same location in Salzgitter-Bad, which are being funded by the 50 million euro structural aid from the state of Lower Saxony that he raised with the support of local members of the state parliament Stefan Klein, Marcus Bosse and Christoph Plett. In addition to the public, the South Local Council, the specialist committees and the city council will be informed in detail about the completion of the preliminary planning in May.
Lord Mayor Frank Klingebiel: "In recent months, the preliminary planning for the construction of the new Wiesenschule elementary school and the three-group daycare center was carried out and completed by the Hamburg architectural firm commissioned following a Europe-wide tender. The fact that the city of Salzgitter was unable - as originally agreed with the approval authority of the state of Lower Saxony - to put the planning and implementation services out to tender jointly to a general contractor had a delaying effect; instead, the planning services and implementation services had to be put out to tender individually throughout Europe due to existing state regulations. This time delay annoys me so much that I have urgently asked the state government of Lower Saxony, as President of the Association of Cities and Towns of Lower Saxony, to adjust the unacceptable bureaucratic obstacles. If the state government and state parliament do not take swift countermeasures here, Lower Saxony will soon be "left behind" in international competition. I will not let up in calling for political simplification of the law here. I am therefore all the more pleased that we have now taken a major step forward in our important large-scale project in Salzgitter. A campus-like building complex consisting of a school building, sports hall, daycare center and existing sports hall is to be built at the Wiesenstraße site. Strictly based on the principles of climate neutrality, energy efficiency and accessibility, the planned new buildings will be exemplary and meet all the requirements of modern construction. According to current planning, the total costs amount to around 21.9 million euros, of which around 17.5 million euros will be spent on the construction of the elementary school including the sports hall and 4.4 million euros on the construction of the daycare center. The task now is to quickly concretize and implement the existing cornerstones of the construction planning. The project proposal for the implementation of the new construction measures based on these architectural plans will be presented to the Salzgitter City Council for a decision in June 2022. The subsequent Europe-wide implementation tender, which is required due to the bureaucratic state regulations, will not lead to a start of construction until the end of 2023, which is then expected to last until spring 2025. Following the completion of construction, the old building complex will be dismantled."
Some additional details on the current planning for the new buildings at the Wiesenstrasse site:
- Construction planning: The new buildings are designed in such a way that only insignificant parts of the old building need to be demolished before construction begins. During the construction period, the day nursery and school will remain in the old building, which will only be dismantled after completion. The construction time is minimized by the fact that the building is being constructed using modular construction methods. Both factors mean that the costs for an interim solution are saved and the disruption to school operations is as short as possible. Furthermore, the sports hall will only be built after the school and daycare center have been completed.
- The elementary school is planned as a three-storey, rectangular building measuring around 64 meters x 23 meters. There will be a canteen, childcare rooms and a library on the top floor. Classrooms and sanitary facilities are planned for the upper floors. The building will be a modular timber construction with a flat roof with sloping insulation (including large areas of gravel or a green roof). The exterior walls will be clad in larch wood. An electrically operated air/water heat pump on the roof will provide the heat supply. Photovoltaic modules will also generate electricity for the building's own needs.
- The new sports hall is to be built in a rectangular shape (dimensions: 36 meters x 21 meters). Here, too, the supporting structure will be made of timber. The roof will be drained by a slight slope and will also have a gravel or green covering. A photovoltaic system will also produce electricity there.
- The daycare center is to be built on two floors (dimensions 12 meters x 43 meters). The first floor will house the dining room with kitchen, the crèche, an exercise room and the learning workshop. The group rooms for the kindergarten groups and the staff area will be located on the upper floor. Similar to the school, the timber construction is also planned here. The building will be supplied with heat via its own air/water heat pump. A photovoltaic system is also planned, which will generate electricity for the building's own use.