A "sports park for all" is to be created in the Soers sports park, in which

numerous sports, sports clubs in both elite and popular sports and also for non-organized sports, a wide range of training, exercise and competition opportunities will be available. At its meeting on Wednesday evening (September 4), the city council set further important plans in motion. It was unanimously decided that the project for a multifunctional sports hall and the necessary parking infrastructure at the Soers sports park site should be driven forward quickly.

The administration had previously presented various scenarios for the construction of a multifunctional sports hall including an adjoining mobility hub. The "standard" variant is now favored. This meets the core requirements of suitability for competitions and the German national league for the ball sports volleyball, handball and basketball, including a spectator capacity of up to 3,000 people. The triple sports hall also offers all options for optimal training operations in popular and top-class sport. The room program also includes all the ancillary rooms required for sport (changing rooms, showers, toilets, storage, technology, etc.), equipment, weight and gymnastics rooms and, in the context of Bundesliga suitability, rooms for VIPs, catering and the media.

The politicians have also commissioned the administration to carry out a feasibility study. This is intended to shed light on various structural implementation approaches, under which conditions the usage program of the multifunctional sports hall can be expanded to include the modules "running and jumping", "climbing" and "sports office".

For several years now, the city of Aachen has been working intensively on the further development of the Soers sports park into a "sports park for all", in which a wide range of training, exercise and competition opportunities are to be created for numerous sports, sports clubs in both elite and popular sports and also for non-organized sports. In February 2023, it initiated a one-year master plan process in which the Aachen City Sports Association and all local sports clubs in the Soers were actively involved.

The city and its partners have been promised 40 million euros in funding from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia for the development of the Soers Sports Park. These are to be divided equally between the City of Aachen and the Aachen-Laurensberger Rennverein (ALRV). The city of Aachen will receive 20 million euros for the priority demolition of the former police headquarters and the subsequent construction of the multifunctional sports hall. The other half of the funding will go to the ALRV for the realization of a new equestrian sports hall. The equestrian sports hall is embedded in an overall concept for the promotion of young talent, para-sports and stables.

The city of Aachen commissioned the planning office Karres en Brands (Hilversum, Netherlands) together with the office for traffic, urban and environmental planning PGT (Hanover) to draw up the master plan.

In addition to the construction of the new municipal multifunctional sports hall with the necessary parking infrastructure and the ALRV equestrian sports hall, the construction of a continuous public running track of up to three kilometers in length as well as other public sports and training facilities is planned.

In terms of planning, the overall development of Sportpark Soers is embedded in the current sports development plan, which determined the municipal sports requirements for the city as a whole in 2023 and was approved by Aachen City Council in June 2024.

Meanwhile, the outdoor exhibition on the Soers sports park master plan can be seen at the ZwischenZeit site on Büchel until September 30. Further information: www.aachen.de/sportparksoers.