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fromAnnette Schlegl
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shut down
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An investor wants to tear down a stately villa steeped in history in Dreieich and create a modern residential building instead. Sections of the population protest.
It is venerable, has charm and is almost 100 years old: the so-called Wienand Villa on Eisenbahnstrasse in the Dreieich district of Sprendlingen is not only a defining feature of the cityscape, but also a witness of the times – and is still to be demolished. At least those are the plans of the investor who bought the 6500 square meter property including the villa and is aiming for residential development there. “This would mean that a testimony to Dreieich’s local history would be lost,” says Wilhelm Ott, chairman of the “Friends of Sprendlingens”, the local association for local history.
His association, together with the Buchschlag history association, wrote an open letter to the investor and to the city of Dreieich and the Offenbach district in mid-November. In it they spoke of “maximizing profit” and asked the regional investment company, which does not want to be named, to withdraw the demolition application and to integrate the villa into the construction project. The investor then sought a conversation with the association representatives and stated that an expert opinion had shown that the preservation of the villa was not financially feasible – even if it was technically feasible. “According to his information, the investor cannot find a realistic usage concept for the villa, the investments would be higher than the income,” says Ott.
Monument protection denied
The State Office for Monument Preservation even visited the building as part of the sale, said Ott, but confirmed a decision that it made back in 1985 when the monument topography in the Offenbach district was drawn up: the villa is not an individual monument worth protecting. Too much has been rebuilt inside. This means that it is not possible for the city of Dreieich and the Offenbach district to prevent the demolition.
According to Corinna Molitor, director of the Dreieich Museum, the building is of historical importance because it is a testament to the city’s industrial history. It is the last visible sign of the tooth factory that the brothers Heinrich and Friedrich Wienand built on Eisenbahnstrasse in 1908. The company manufactured artificial teeth and was “the largest employer in town,” said Molitor. Pictures and exhibits are still on display in their museum. The company premises of around 22,000 square meters were sold in the early 2000s, the company buildings were demolished, and single-family houses and a retirement home were built in their place. Only the villa, which Heinrich Wienand built in 1926 and which was inhabited by family members until the 1960s, remained on the remaining 6,500 square meters. The site with the factory owner’s villa recently belonged to an English investment company, which leased it to the hotel chains Dorint and Mercure, and most recently to Best Western. “The house served as a conference venue,” said Ott. Water damage after heavy rains in June this year prompted the hotel chain to terminate the contract. The regional investor bought the area and submitted a demolition application to the construction supervision of the Offenbach district.
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