After seven years of renovation Bonn university underground car park opens in April

Bonn · For seven years the underground car park at Bonn University was closed for renovation. It is to reopen in April. With several hundred additional parking spaces, the parking situation in Bonn can relax somewhat.

After seven years of renovation: Bonn university underground car park opens in April
Foto: Benjamin Westhoff

The university underground car park was closed for seven years. It is to be reopened in April after a 19 million euro renovation. In 2012, the responsible building and real estate company (BLB) of the state of NRW had to close the garage, which was opened in 1969. It was dilapidated and no longer safe. 448 parking spaces were lost.

Now the parking situation in Bonn should soon ease again, announced university spokesman Andreas Archut on Tuesday afternoon during a visit to the renovated garage. Archut called the upcoming opening a "memorable event". The highlight of the quasi new garage: remains of the old city wall from the 18th century, visible to the public behind fire-proof glass. The uncovering of the remains of the wall cost an extra 600,000 euros, Archut said. With the installation of an elevator, the Unigarage is finally barrier-free.

Elevator can only be used with parking ticket

Like the staircases, which are located at their former locations on Regina-Pacis-Weg and behind the arcade courtyard, the elevator can only be used with a parking ticket, said Tamara Riedesser of City Parkraum GmbH (BCP). Appropriate readers will be installed for this purpose. This should prevent unauthorised access and increase the security of the car park users. In future, BCP will be the operator of the garage. According to Unikanzler Holger Gottschalk, the lease agreement runs for seven years. For Gottschalk, who has been in office for three years, it is the first building of Bonn University that he will be able to open, he said with a smile with regard to the many other construction sites that the university currently has to deal with. "This is already an historic moment for me."

University Rector Michael Hoch is also pleased: "The construction work was halfway on schedule," he said, "which is more than can be said of the planning time. Background: According to project manager Christina Feder from SU, the protection of the garage as a public garage was abolished with a complete renovation. Since the state is not allowed to financially support a publicly used garage, the project had to be put to legal scrutiny until it was agreed that the university would contribute three million euros to cover the additional costs for a public use of the garage from its own budget.

In addition, a budget freeze by the state government was added, and the original planning office had had to be separated due to poor performance. All this together had led to the fact that construction work could only be started five years after the closure.

250 parking spaces reserved for university employees during the day

During the day, 250 of the 448 parking spaces are available to university employees. Rector Hoch pointed out that in other garages, the parking spaces previously rented by the university would be available to the public again in return.

As before, the parking spaces are 2.30 metres wide, as the 230 supporting pillars had to remain standing and could not be moved. All in all, the garage presents itself in a brighter and more modern light. To increase the load-bearing capacity of the two parking decks, around 1400 cubic metres of new concrete were placed and around 160 tonnes of new reinforcing steel were laid. In addition to four disabled parking spaces on the upper level, there are ten charging stations for electric cars. "No parking garage currently has more public charging stations," Riedesser emphasized.

The garage will be open around the clock from the beginning of April, and the parking fees will be the same as in other BCP car parks in the city centre such as the Stadthausgarage or Friedensplatzgarage. Access is from Stockenstraße as in the past, the exit is at Kaiserplatz.

Original text: Lisa Inhoffen, Translation: Mareike Graepel

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