Thunderstorm damage Maximiliancenter at Bonn central station remains closed for the time being
Bonn · The heavy rain in the night to Sunday has affected pipes in the shopping center at the main station. For safety reasons, all stores and restaurants have therefore been closed. It is currently unclear when they will be able to reopen.
For the business operators and customers of the stores and restaurants in the Maximiliancenter, the weekend is still continuing. Because thunderstorms and heavy rain on Saturday evening have apparently led to some damage, so that the entire shopping center at the main station remains closed until further notice. Affected is the clothing store Primark as well as the branches of Rewe, "DM", "Kentucky Fried Chicken", the bakery Merzenich and all other stores in the multi-storey passage. The economic damage is likely to be correspondingly high with each additional day without operations. In contrast, the "Urban Soul" site on the other side of Poststrasse suffered no damage.
Businessmen were taken by surprise
Because the thunderstorm broke out during the night, the business people were initially unaware of what happened. The employee of a restaurant said that when she wanted to open on Sunday morning, she was surprised to find that the entire block was closed off. As things stand, no damage was done to the store itself, but to a pipe in the basement. According to reports, the operator then had the electricity cut off and the Maximiliancenter was completely closed off for safety reasons.
"We were told that they would try to repair the damage as quickly as possible," reported a businesswoman. However, no one currently knows when that will be. Even a call to the owner of the property, the Bavarian Chamber of Supply based in Munich, did not bring clarity on Tuesday. At the moment, experts are busy analyzing the damage in order to have it repaired as quickly as possible so that the all the businesses can resume operations, she said. "Unfortunately, we cannot give an exact date for this at the moment," a spokesman told the General-Anzeiger.
The fact that there was a problem in the Maximilian Center after the thunderstorm had already been reported by Bonn's public utility company on Sunday: One of their escalators no longer worked.
Original text: Rüdiger Franz. Translation: Mareike Graepel
