The Rabinstraße building will give the University roughly 22,000 square meters of new, centrally located space to be used by the humanities faculties in particular, which have been housed in the Electoral Palace. The Faculty of Catholic Theology, the Faculty of Protestant Theology and Faculty of Arts will be moving out of the Baroque-era building temporarily to allow a complete renovation to the latest technology and energy standards that will enable its future usage as a center for excellence in research and teaching. Fire safety and historical preservation requirements are central to the renovation planning.
Handover of the fallback property is May 1, 2022, which is the lease start date. The lease expires in 2037, but can be extended. The building will be primarily used as office space for the academic staff of the faculties concerned, but also for library space and seminar and meeting rooms. The property also has underground parking. The office building Rabinstraße 8 was built in the 1990s, designed by architects Krenz, Meier + Assoziierte (Bonn group) as a training facility and office building for insurance company Deutscher Herold (later Zurich).
The University will likely be leasing the building Poppelsdorfer Allee 31-33 in mid-2023 through the year 2038. Preparatory work is underway on the former main administration building of the insurance company Deutscher Herold for use by the new tenant. The property offers roughly 9,000 square meters of fallback space for the University administration to continue its work.
Convenient central location
Leasing these two properties is an important step for the University, as Provost Holger Gottschalk, Head of Central Administration, explains: “We are really killing two birds with one stone. Getting started soon with moving out of the main building will allow BLB NRW (the North Rhine-Westphalia state construction and real estate agency) to get the renovation done that much more quickly. At the same time, the departments affected are ensured of getting excellently suited facilities for research, teaching and administrative work in a convenient central location.”
Increased interaction between faculties and departments
As Rector Michael Hoch commented, the University was very interested in having the humanities faculties all together at Rabinstraße 8. “As a University of Excellence, promoting our faculties is a core strategic concern here in Bonn. Now important progress has been made in the wake of the resolution to renovate the Palace, urgently required, as we have found a superb temporary solution for the theological faculties and the Faculty of Arts. The Rabinstraße building is highly suitable for the dean’s offices and departments, and also facilitates greater interaction between faculties and departments.”
The University of Bonn is the leading institution in the German Universities Excellence Initiative with its six Clusters of Excellence. In connection with this, the University is expanding its six transdisciplinary research areas for addressing key societal, technological and scientific issues of future relevance from various perspectives.