A beautiful town square and a ´Drive-in Museum’ for Woerden
On Thursday, October 12th, Mr H.W. Schmidt, Mayor of the town of Woerden, will officially open the new shopping and residential area of Hoochwoert in the centre of Woerden.
The official programme begins at 10 a.m.
Hoochwoert is an inner-city redevelopment of around 9,000 m² of stores, restaurants, cafés and services, 86 apartments and town houses, as well as an underground parking garage for around 500 cars. Hoochwoert covers the area from the Nieuwe Markt, Kerkplein to the Molenstraat and forms the key project in the renovation of Woerden’s city centre. The centre receives a wider range of stores and greater variation, making it more attractive for the inhabitants of Woerden and the surrounding area.
“Hoochwoert in the heart of Woerden is a beautiful example of restoring a part of the city centre, a Renaissance you might say. Through the transformation into a new square and the new shopping circuit the whole city centre is now interconnected into a large and inviting place to spend time. In collaboration with the town of Woerden we have succeeded in bringing coherency and conviviality into the centre and integrating the history of the place,” says Marcel Kokkeel, managing director of Multi Vastgoed.
Hoochwoert centre plan is a development of Multi Vastgoed in collaboration with the town of Woerden. The project was acquired by Interpolis Vastgoed B.V. for the benefit of the Rabobank Pension Fund Foundation. In all, the whole development including execution took nearly ten years. The investment value amounts to around 68 million euros.
Town square
The unique thing about the plan is that, for the first time in its history, Woerden is getting a full-fledged town square. Together with the new construction and the beautiful town square, the existing Barracks from 1787 will form the heart of the city centre. Beneath the new buildings and the square is a parking garage with over 500 places.
This makes Hoochwoert an attractive starting point for a visit to the new shopping circuit that is developing in the city centre. The new town square lies on a very valuable historical substrate: among other things, a large Roman cantonment, the castellum Laurium, was located here.
Fascinating shopping offer
The alternation of familiar major chains including C&A and Xenos (new for Woerden), Kruidvat and Hema, with specialised stores will make shopping in Woerden an even more appealing experience. A grand café with terrace is located in the former fire department garage on the Kazerneplein.
The project
Three architects - Jo Crepain from Antwerp, Groeneweg & van der Meijden from Dordrecht and Rappange and Partners from Amsterdam - jointly developed the concept of T+T Design from Gouda into an architectural style which fits perfectly with the existing buildings in the centre. The image-defining elements in the centre of Woerden - such as the Arsenal, the Barracks, the former parsonage and Concordia - constituted the starting point for the design of the three architects. The town of Woerden commissioned landscape architects MTD to prepare a design for the Kerkplein. Here one sought above all to establish a relationship with the Roman past.
As architect Jo Crepain describes it, Hoochwoert offers an ideal combination between large and small shops and the right balance between bustling town centre and oasis of peace and quiet. In short, Hoochwoert combines “the best of both worlds”.
A first for Woerden: opening the first archaeological Drive-in Museum in the Netherlands
Within the framework of the new construction, Hoochwoert centre plan created a unique archaeological project in the city centre of Woerden: a large-scale visualisation of the Roman history of Woerden.
Woerden´s city centre has a special past: in Roman times an important army camp, the castellum Laurium, was located here, as well as a trade settlement, the vicus. Traces of both the army camp and the trade settlement were found during the archaeological study that preceded the redevelopment of the city centre.
Furthermore, the remains of a Roman freighter, the Woerden 7, were found in the old bed of the Rhine. After years of absence, the archaeological visualisation programme has brought the Romans back to Woerden once again.
Throughout the city centre visitors are reminded that there was a great deal of activity on this site as far back as Roman times.
One of the high points of the visualisation programme is the Castellum garage which is set up as a ´Drive-in Museum´. For example, the parking garage features large wall decorations with reconstructions of the life in and around the castellum Laurium and large photos of finds, including of the Woerden 7. In the pavement of the square there is also the Roman Strip. The history of Roman Woerden is told here in word and image, engraved in natural stone. The objective of the archaeological visualisation is twofold: to inform the public in a direct and accessible way about an important part of Woerden’s history and to make the city centre more attractive for the shopping public and tourists.
Profile of MULTI
Multi Vastgoed forms part of the Multi Corporation, a group of companies which is active throughout Europe in property development (Multi Development and Multi Vastgoed), investment (Multi Investment), asset management (Multi Asset Management) and mall management (Multi Mall Management). With a Morgan Stanley Real Estate Fund as its new financial partner, Multi has strengthened its position to become an investing developer and move forward on its path to further growth. The strategy of Multi is and remains focused on developing projects in European countries where significant growth is expected.
Across Europe, Multi´s projects appeal to peoples’ imagination. The ´Design & Development´ formula strongly focuses on design quality and MULTI has its own design group - T+T Design - for urban development and architectural concepts. Multi´s projects are internationally recognised for their original and innovative nature, architectural quality and profound sensitivity to the blending of urban design. Our concepts regularly act as the engine for regenerating a city or region. By respecting local culture and style we develop projects with which people can easily identify.
Multi Development is active in 18 European countries, with offices in the Netherlands (headquarters), Belgium, Great Britain, France, Germany, Czech Republic, Poland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece and Turkey.