Cologne's Gymnasium Müngersdorf: year after year without a sports hall!

Cologne's Gymnasium Müngersdorf: year after year without a sports hall!

Aachener Straße 744-750, 50933 Köln, Deutschland - The Müngersdorf grammar school in Cologne has been waiting for the construction of an urgently needed sports hall for three years. The school, which is located in a converted Unitymedia office building, took up school three years ago, but the promised spatial extensions, especially the triple gymnasium, have not been realized to this day. These grievances were most recently criticized by Simon Biela, the chairman of the association. The administration had changed the tender to the sports hall several times, which further complicated the process and searched for an investor for a Bundesliga -suitable sports hall.

This hall should not only enable school and club sport, but is also designed for Bundesliga games in volleyball, handball and basketball. The requirements for the gym are ambitious: it should offer space for 1,500 spectators, 400 parking spaces, gastronomic facilities and VIP rooms, as well as a digital glass floor that is twice as elastic as a regular soil and should thus reduce the risk of sports injuries. It was originally planned to build such a hall at the Willy Brandt Comprehensive School, but this project was rejected due to traffic concerns. This results in a clear lack of indoor capacity in Cologne, as an expert opinion on sports development illustrates.

uncertain planning and frustration

A procedure for looking for a suitable property within a radius of two kilometers is currently underway, with a Handelshof consortium already making an offer. However, the costs for the scheduled building are significantly higher than those of a regular triple gymnasium, which the city presents with great financial challenges. Due to the current budget situation, the project is on the brink, and the city of Cologne has so far gave no information about the state of planning. As the most likely solution, a return to the original plans for a triple gym and a new tender seems to be considered.

Dissatisfaction within the school community grows because the school's outside area is small and can only be used to a limited extent. The redesign of the school yard is also in preparation, although there are no binding appointments due to the interests of residents regarding sound insulation. This problem is considered against the background of the steadily growing school requirement, as the city of Cologne proves in its statistics on school construction and the number of students. The existing school population is not sufficient to effectively counter the need, which also underlines the need for investments in school building.

In 2023, the Cologne school building company mbH was founded to expand the capacities in school building and thus meet the growing requirements. Measures such as densification at primary schools as well as strengthening pacts for comprehensive schools and high schools are intended to help improve the current situation. Nevertheless, the question remains how quickly and effectively these plans can be put into practice, while the pupils and teachers in the Müngersdorf grammar school continue to wait for urgently needed rooms.

For more information about school construction in Cologne and the current projects, visit the pages of the Kölnische Rundschau href = "https://www.stadt-koeln.de/artikel/73973/index.html"> City of Cologne as well as the Kölner School Building Society .