Groninger Gezinsbode 09-02-2021
Project developer Veldboom has several projects underway in forgotten places in the city. “We have already made a lot of progress on Jullensstraat, where we are realizing more than 200 rental homes, and we are also working hard on Helperwestsingel and Van Heemskerckstraat.”
The area behind Jullensstraat is currently still an outdated business park. Veldboom wants to further develop the one-hectare plot of the Werkman horseshoe factory on Helperwestsingel. On the Van Heemskerckstraat, it concerns a plot next to the Augustinuscollege on the site where a boys’ boarding school used to be located. Veldboom will also develop sustainable homes at these locations.
The project on Jullensstraat has (after extensive sessions with local residents) nearly completed the permit process, the other projects are currently being engineered and designed. To the west of Hereweg, the Helpman district is home to a remarkable number of old industrial estates. “The city is developing from the inside out,” says Johannes Flim, director of real estate development at Veldboom.
Axel Veldboom adds: “You now have a lot of buildings from the beginning of the last century and from the 1970s. We are now trying to make the city a little more beautiful in those forgotten places by adding contemporary homes. On the Helperwestsingel we are also building social housing; we have an agreement with Patrimonium about this.”
In construction projects of this magnitude, the municipality requires that some of the homes be designated for social housing, Axel Veldboom explains. And we also notice that there are more and more requirements for the greenery. An excellent development.
Veldboom once started as a landlord of student rooms, but in recent years the project developer has grown considerably: in various places in the country Veldboom is building a total of almost 5,000 homes. Very ambitious is a large share in the new Entree of Zoetermeer, where an enormous business park on both sides of the access road to Zoetermeer is being transformed into a new residential area.
Besides the three large new-build projects in ‘forgotten places’ in Groningen, Veldboom is also tackling the redevelopment of two large former office buildings. Veldboom is creating apartments in an old office building on Damsport. Next to the Westerhaven shopping center on Steenhouwerskade is a former office building. “We are going to make that more sustainable and we will build beautiful apartments instead.” This will then become, after the Zwarte Doos on the Eendrachtskade, the second large office in this corner of the city in which apartments will be built.