Multi-functional Arena in Ludwigsburg / Germany
A future trend: medium-sized, multi-function halls and arenas, built as PPP projects with cities and municipalities. A prime example is the town of Ludwigsburg, situated north of Stuttgart in south-west Germany, which has built an ultramodern venue for sporting and entertainment events at the heart of the town centre.
The baroque town of Ludwigsburg has an ambitious club in Germany’s national basketball league, but no adequate sports venue. As a result, whenever the ball wizards of EnBW Ludwigsburg have had a game likely to attract a good crowd, they have often had to switch the venue to Stuttgart. This definitely isn’t a happy situation for a team that reached the semi-final of the 2006/2007 German basketball championship. This is why the players of EnBW Ludwigsburg are the people most pleased about the decision of Ludwigsburg’s town council to enter into a public-private partnership (PPP) with HBM to build a state-of-the-art, multi-function hall. With a total of 5,220 seats and standing places for basketball games, the hall boasts almost twice the capacity of the club’s old venue. But being a multi-function hall, it can of course also be utilised for a wide range of other uses. Offering great flexibility, functionality and space for up to 7,122 seats and standing spaces for events at which the basketball court can be used otherwise, conditions are ideal for staging a diverse range of events – from theatre and TV productions to concerts and receptions. The development also includes a hotel with 128 rooms, an office building, a residential sports school and landscaping of the outside facilities at the western entrance of the adjacent railway station. Thanks to the 700 spaces in the car park that also belongs to the complex, and to the direct access to the train station, it’s easy to get to and from the site. And it goes without saying that the building meets all modern-day requirements in terms of long-term sustainability. The basic energy requirements of the hall are covered the whole year round by a combined heat and power plant (CHP) run on eco-fuels. Long operating times – and therefore greater reliability – for the CHP are achieved by storing the heating water in two buffer storage tanks. Another environment-friendly feature is the 150-m2 grey-water tank for storing rainwater used to flush the toilets. This €42-million project was completed in September 2009, right on time for the IDSF World Championships in Standard Formation Dancing, at which the complex cut a fine figure.
