The arduous journey to police headquarters

Until then, SOH had patiently allowed the state to extend the purchase option six times and, in the meantime, had not only borne the costs of clearing the site and relocating and compensating previous users, but also the maintenance costs of the site, including taxes, fees and interest losses. The state later contributed to the maintenance costs. The Stadtwerke Offenbach company OPG Offenbacher Projektentwicklungsgesellschaft had been commissioned to clear the construction site. As agreed, it cleared the site by 2012 and prepared the construction site. This not only required clearing and demolition work, but also the relocation of previous site users such as the Kleingärtnerverein Süd e.V. (KGV Süd), the 1. Offenbacher Kleintierzuchtverein 1905 e.V. and the Kinder- und Jugendfarm Offenbach e.V..

Some independent allotment gardeners and the small animal breeding association were also compensated financially for the loss of aviaries. OPG Managing Director Daniela Matha, who is now head of the entire Stadtwerke Geschäftsfeld Immobilien division: "We held many discussions at the time and found a good, responsible solution for everyone."

For OPG, clearing the construction site was also associated with a new building - the first building construction project since taking over the engineering services from its sister company EEG (development, site development, building management).

The Offenbach children's and youth farm association and the landscape gardening department of the non-profit Offenbach training and employment company (GOAB) were to be given a new joint location on Buchhügelallee to the east of their previous domiciles. Both had previously been active on a part of the site where the city nursery's cultivation garden used to be located. The replacement building was also to be used by the neighboring Wetterpark as the "third in the group". The nature and science park, which opened on the Buchhügel in 2005, had always lacked a visitor center.

But things turned out differently. Due to changes in federal policy and the resulting sharp reduction in funding, GOAB was forced to withdraw from the joint project at the end of 2010. It was dissolved in 2013 due to insolvency. OPG had to redesign the project. With the approval of the city council, the children's and youth farm was given a new farmhouse with stables in 2012 as the sole user of the replacement location on Buchhügelallee. Two years later, in 2014, the weather park was able to open its own visitor center not far away on Elbestrasse. The building, which won an award for its architecture reminiscent of a research center, has since also served as the entrance to the regional park. In addition to SOH funds from the budgeted sale of land, state subsidies were also used to finance the project.

While the relocation of the allotment gardeners' association to a new site near the animal shelter was still unproblematic, the relocation of Offenbach's 1st small animal breeders' association was not under a good star. The city of Offenbach had provided the association with a new leasehold site. The breeders wanted to build a new exhibition hall on their own and received an initial payment from the public utility company. Because the club treasurer misappropriated the cash and was legally convicted, the project, which began in 2013, stalled and did not progress beyond the shell of the building for years.

A stroke of luck for the small animal breeders: when construction of the police headquarters began in 2018, the construction company Goldbeck rented the hall from the city, completed it at its own expense and used it as a construction office. With the completion of the police headquarters, Goldbeck will vacate the building and prepare the exhibition hall and the surrounding grounds so that the hall can be used by the small animal breeding association. The municipal real estate office will then hand over the hall to the small animal breeders.

OPG still has some final work to do to compensate for the ecological impact of the construction work on Buchhügel. In May, Stadtservice employees carried out the final work on a renaturalized field in the Kuhmühlgraben landscape conservation area near Rumpenheim. On behalf of OPG and in coordination with the Office for the Environment, Energy and Climate Protection, they planted three walnut trees. The area along the Geleitsweg, which was restored as a meadow in 2019, is one of two compensatory measures for the presidential building.