„Jackie K." project in Bad Godesberg Pyramid on the former Postbank site to disappear

Bad Godesberg · The demolition on the former Postbank site in Bad Godesberg continues. The building application for the office building has already been submitted. Residents are annoyed about dust and about an expert opinion.

 The pyramid-like building on the former Postbank site is to be demolished in June.

The pyramid-like building on the former Postbank site is to be demolished in June.

Foto: Maximilian Mühlens

Construction rubble is scattered in various piles all over the site. Excavators are used to separate and pile everything up. There is nothing left of the large building on Kennedyallee. It has already been completely dismantled. A lot has happened in the past months on the former Postbank site (about 32,000 square metres) between Kennedyallee and Ahrstraße. Only the conspicuous pyramid-like building is still standing. At least partially. Here and there, excavators have already broken out elements of the building, and on the curves of the floors you can see a multitude of white sacks, presumably filled with building rubble.

As reported, the Düsseldorf-based Gerchgroup and BPD Immobilienentwicklung want to create residential and office space on the former Postbank site, which is surrounded by Ahrstraße and Moselstraße. Gerch is realising the new office building on Kennedyallee, BPD the residential construction and a planned day-care centre. Approximately 225 privately financed housing units and 160 subsidised housing units are to be built.

Pyramid-like building to be demolished in June

However, the days of the striking pyramid-like building, which can be easily seen from a distance, are numbered. "We currently expect the high-rise to be demolished from June 2023," says Markus Kalscheuer, office manager of the Cologne branch of BPD Immobilienentwicklung GmbH. The demolition of the building will mainly take place floor by floor. "A special construction machine will be used. It has an extension arm about 52 metres long. This makes it possible to demolish the building successively, starting from the upper floors," Kalscheuer explained further.

In addition, the demolition work had to be paused in the past weeks. Additional "necessary noise protection measures" were necessary. The city of Bonn as well as the BPD had received complaints from the immediate neighbourhood about the noise from the construction site. These were "dealt with immediately". The concerns of the neighbourhood were taken seriously and examined accordingly. "In constructive coordination talks, the noise protection measures that are now visible on site were drawn up. We are still monitoring the demolition work by taking sound and vibration measurements, which we send to the Building Inspectorate and the Environment Department on a weekly basis," Kalscheuer continues.

Building application for office complex has been submitted

Nevertheless, the project is currently on schedule, as Alexander Pauls, Chief Development Officer and board member of Gerch, told the GA. Gerch has already submitted the building application for the office complex. BPD now wants to follow suit for the housing and the daycare centre. According to Pauls, there have been no changes in the plans so far.

In October, work was already paused when cracks were discovered in houses in the neighbourhood. At that time, no demolition work was carried out, which could cause vibrations. At that time, cracks had been discovered mainly in Moselstraße. In total, there had been two reports. There had been no preservation of evidence with the neighbours. "The demolition contractor was very quick, we were actually still in the pre-construction phase," Kalscheuer said at the time during an appointment at the construction site. In addition, vibrations were permanently measured at six different locations - the devices were equipped with a mobile phone card and permanently transmitted data.

BPD: Cracks in buildings do not originate from deconstruction work

A graduate civil engineer and consulting engineer as well as a publicly appointed and sworn expert for "damage to buildings" assessed the damage on behalf of BPD. "In the meantime, the adjacent buildings have been surveyed, provided we have gained access. According to the surveyor, the damage found was not caused by our demolition work," says Kalscheuer.

The interest group Flussviertel, which consists mainly of residents, does not want this result to stand, as spokesperson Ulrike Preissler told the GA. Especially since the houses were only assessed after the work had been carried out.

Noise is not currently the main problem for the initiative. "We got a lot of dust," Preissler said. The initiative then commissioned a test and had the dust examined by a laboratory in Berlin. "They found KMF fibres, which are harmful to health above a certain size," says Preissler. KMF stands for artificial mineral fibres - that these and also asbestos were in the building from 1971 was already clear in advance. The initiative had informed the municipality about the result, after which more water was used for deconstruction at the construction site in order to keep the dust at the site.

Original text: Maximilian Mühlens

Translation: Mareike Graepel

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