A green campus for the new Dean’s office in Darmstadt

• fromJens Joachim

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The Protestant deaneries in and around Darmstadt will merge on January 1, 2022. A building in the Kapellplatzviertel is now to be renovated and converted into the administrative headquarters.

The Protestant deaneries in Darmstadt city and state will merge on January 1, 2022. During a joint meeting, the synods of the two deaneries recently decided that the future seat of the larger deanery should be in Darmstadt’s Kapellplatzviertel. The plan is to renovate and redesign an administration building of the Darmstadt-Stadt dean’s office on Kiesstrasse. The synods approved such planning with a large majority.

The renovation of the decanate’s own building at Kiesstrasse 14 has been delayed due to the corona pandemic, according to a message. Arno Allmann, the dean of the Darmstadt-Land dean’s office, explained to the members of the two synods that the planning and financing of the project should have been revised again due to the requirements of the Evangelical Church in Hesse and Nassau (EKHN).

The Darmstadt architectural office Menzel / Kossowski is responsible for the construction project, which will cost around two million euros. It is planned to renovate the existing three-story building and to partially convert it. It is to be accessed by a new elevator. There are also plans to renew the electrics and fire protection. A new space program should meet the requirements of the new dean’s office. There are also plans to redesign the forecourt into a “campus with lots of green”.

The Dean’s office and administration will move into the new shared location. There will also be offices for the areas of ecumenism, public relations, education, social responsibility, integration, emergency pastoral care, church music, child and youth work and work for the elderly as well as for the day care center and the construction department. Construction work is to begin this year.

The regional diaconal work, which was previously rented in the house, will move its advisory services to the “Open House” on Rheinstrasse, where the Darmstadt-Stadt dean’s office is currently located. The building on Rheinstrasse will remain the property of the Dean’s Office and will continue to be used as a location for events, conferences and meetings. The ecumenical shop “Kirche & Co” and the café on the ground floor will also be retained. The building in Ober-Ramstadt, where the state dean’s office is currently located and which belongs to the local Protestant parish, is to be rented to someone else.

According to city dean Ulrike Schmidt-Hesse, the merged dean’s office Darmstadt Stadt und Land with around 86,000 members will become the second largest dean’s office of the EKHN after the city dean’s office in Frankfurt and Offenbach. The name of the new dean’s office will be decided on June 25th.

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