The foundation stone was laid for the Mothes Karree in Bilk. In the previous year the construction site stood idle for a long time; things then got moving with the involvement of the Tecklenburg Group.
Things then got moving with the involvement of the Tecklenburg Group, and on Thursday the foundation stone was laid for the new Mothes-Karree residential quarter, which has long been planned there.
This location practically breathes industrial history. On Suitbertusstraße there was a wood and metal processing operation for a long time; from 1937 Max Mothes then produced screws and nuts here. The business grew to six halls plus a three-storey office building – and at some point the site became too small. Mothes moved to Neuss.
A boulevard in the middle of the Mothes-Karree inner courtyard. The two-row development consists of ten house units with five to seven apartments each. The houses are built with two storeys plus a set-back top floor and open onto landscaped courtyards. The front building and courtyard development are connected by a boulevard. The owner family Vitenius, descendants of the entrepreneur Mothes, wanted instead to create housing, including affordable housing, but that took time. An interim use was intended to bridge the period, and it quickly attained cult status: for six years, until the end of 2019, the BouiBoui event venue attracted many people to flea markets and cultural events. In total there were more than a million people, as Ulrich Vitenius can report. He had to wait a long time for a building permit; there was much to consider and to revise in this inner-courtyard area with immediate neighbours. "That was as challenging as it was time-consuming for us," says Vitenius. And when things finally got started, the problems mentioned at the outset arose again – reportedly delays because of an object that blocked the access road and was not owned by the developers. But the high construction costs and the heavy workload of construction firms are also said to have jeopardised the project. Originally the Mothes apartments were meant to be completed as early as 2019. For Lord Mayor Stephan Keller (CDU), the Mothes-Karree, as the new residential quarter is named, is a showcase project in several respects. Although it is largely condominiums (58) with living areas of 60 to 130 square metres that are being built, plus two townhouses. "But there will also be eleven subsidised rental apartments in the front building," Keller recalled. The owners insisted on it, even though the municipal housing action concept, which prescribes a proportion of social housing, would not have applied to this project. Seven euros per square metre is mentioned. The front building, which will be erected on Suitbertusstraße in a second step and thus close the existing gap in the development, is then to remain in the ownership of the Vitenius family.
We need every apartment, especially in Bilk with its more than 120,000 inhabitants – that is more than in Bottrop," Keller drew a vivid comparison. He also praised the type of interim use; however, he cannot understand the criticism that it was only intended to be temporary at all: "A developer also has a right to build." From the end of 2024, young families, working people and senior citizens in particular are now to find a new home on Suitbertusstraße. "It is always something special when we realise a project at a location with such an interesting and long history," said Herrmann Tecklenburg, managing partner of the Tecklenburg Group. "This project is almost proverbial for urban change: where things were once produced and traded, new living space is now emerging – urban, in the middle of the city and yet a kind of green oasis," said Tecklenburg.
Author: Marc Ingel (RP)
This article was originally published in the Tecklenburg GmbH news archive.
