Inconspicuous and still hidden today, there is a gem on Bismarckstraße near the main train station that the city wants to breathe new life into. Supported by the "Socially Integrative City" urban development program, now known as "Social Cohesion", the city of Offenbach acquired the property at Bismarckstraße 118 at the end of 2018, which is directly adjacent to the railroad underpass from the bus station to Senefelderstraße. The city most recently operated a branch office of the neighborhood management team here in one of the mostly vacant railroad depots. From May to June 2022, the site will now be cleared to make way for a house for communal living by Stadtwerke subsidiary GBO Gemeinnützige Baugesellschaft mbH and a public green space. The competition to design this area, which was preceded by a public participation process to find ideas in 2021, will be completed in early summer this year.
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The historic signal box was also part of the land purchase at the time. Since the switch to an electronic signal box, the railroad no longer had any use for the technical building and abandoned it to decay. Now, when it becomes more visible to the people of Offenbach after the demolition work, it is to be filled with new life and at least occasionally be accessible for public events. The primary aim is to persuade one of the groups interested in communal living in the GBO project to include the Stellwerk in their utilization concept and develop it as an exhibition venue and community space, for example.
Not everything is possible in the direct vicinity of the railroad: train noise has an impact and disruptions to railroad operations must be ruled out. So there is still a long way to go before the signal box shines in new splendor. The communal living group must first be found and an economically viable concept must be developed together with the GBO. In order to make progress on this, the city of Offenbach has decided to gut the signal box as a first step, to remove contaminated old paintwork and to make the signal box available to interested groups to view for their ideas. Groups are welcome to register their interest in the project with the GBO.
In addition, the city of Offenbach is organizing a small series of events in the summer of 2022 to activate interested parties on site around the topic of communal living, which will also be fun for everyone else in Offenbach and provide information about the upcoming changes in the area. The city has already been awarded the "Zukunftspreis des Großen Frankfurter Bogens" by the state of Hesse for this combination of experience, urban redevelopment and participation in all aspects of housing. To this end, event announcements for the "GFB Summer" are expected to be published on its own or the City of Offenbach's homepage from June. In the course of the events, it will also be possible to visit the signal box individually on certain dates, subject to the condition of the signal box being acceptable before or during the gutting work.