Living among the treetops
The former “New Town Hall” at the Kastell has become apartments in the very best location: surrounded by greenery and at the same time right in the middle of the town centre.
Anyone who still remembers the so-called “New Town Hall”, with its cold glass façades, its covered main entrance and its dark corridors, will rub their eyes in astonishment when they now stand in front of the “Live green” residential complex. Nothing recalls the dilapidated administrative building any longer, nothing hints that behind the gleaming white façade the steel framework of the town hall – which once began its career as a district office building – still remains. What has been retained, however, is what makes the location at the Kastell so special: the unobstructable view into the palace park.
You don't have to stand on the top floor to get the impression of living among the treetops: from some terraces the trees are really within arm's reach.
Gravel car park becomes a play oasis
On the side of the building complex from which one looks onto the houses of the street Im Rosenthal, a playground is just being completed; the former gravel car park has given way to a green oasis, beneath which the entrance to the underground car park is concealed. Towards the Kastellplatz side, the work is not yet as far advanced; there it takes some imagination to picture the design of the area between the residential complex, the renovated old district administration building and the White House.
On and in the new building, one colour dominates: white. White is the façade, white are the stairwells, white are the doors, walls and ceilings in the apartments. Together with the dark wood and tile floors, this harmonises with the fresh green of the trees right in front of the windows.
This complex was built by the Tecklenburg company. The apartments are all sold, but not all are inhabited by the owners; some are also let. As Stephany Quarte, responsible for the marketing of the “Live green” project, explains, some buyers have acquired an apartment with a view to using it as a retirement residence. And one of the buyers now lives where he once worked: in the former district office building. The only commercial space in the entire complex, 260 square metres in size, is rented out to a day-care facility. The outdoor works around the “Live green” complex are not yet finished; the concept for the redesign of the palace surroundings and the transformation of the palace park into an English landscape garden still have to be implemented by the town. But then the residential location can hardly get any better. Source: NRZ
