Investors continue to examine the possibility of a multifunctional hall. This is what various politicians say about the new approaches.
By Jürgen König
and Kristin Dowe
Solingen. It has been clear for months that the planned multifunctional hall will not be built on Weyersberg and without city funding. Investors had promised the result of a comprehensive investigation into the financing, construction and operation of an arena for late summer. “Investors will be in touch once they have completed their review and decision making. Until then, they asked for discretion and patience, and we pressed the pause button,” said Carsten Zimmermann, managing director of the responsible urban development company (SEG), when asked by ST. Investors are being given the time they need for the review – so the presentation of the results will probably still be a long time coming.
Meanwhile, planning was a hot topic in two committees. It was a request from citizens to officially stop the planning of an event arena on Weyersberg. “We are not interested in depriving the Bergischer HC of its venue,” said Karsten Römling, a spokesman for the initiative. Rather, it is about the Weyersberg location, which the applicants rejected, and the immediate end of political planning as a result of the changed framework conditions. Instead, the alliance advocates renovating or building a new blade hall. “Everyone would benefit from this – school and popular sports and the BHC.”
CDU politicians are not very convinced
Dietmar Gaida from the Green Party council group appeared open to the alliance representatives’ request: “The application focuses on the costs that the city of Solingen incurs in planning,” said Gaida. Around 500,000 euros are still available for this. “It would be an important signal for citizens to say: We don’t want that, we have other priorities.”
Committee chairman Carsten Becker (CDU) was unconvinced: “Why should we tackle something that is actually already buried?” The request from the citizens was rejected by the majority, as previously recommended by the sports committee.
Funding is still in the development company
In the ST interview, Sports Association President Detlef Wagner recently showed hope that the remaining money – 880,000 euros had been budgeted for reports in particular – would be invested in Solingen sport. Birgit Evertz (Greens) once again emphasized the importance of the Klingenhalle in the sports committee: “For us, renovation was never a discussion because it is equally important for competitive, popular, club and school sports.”
The fact that the money still available can now be used for other measures in sport is not a sure-fire success. “We just have to see all that first,” said sports department head Dagmar Becker (Greens), who knows the needs of Solingen sports well, including the renovation of the blade hall. The financial resources are currently stored in the SEG and are therefore definitely an option for planning an arena at another location in the city.
2023-09-09 08:00:47
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