You would almost miss it out in these top weeks for Eindhoven. The city has a championship team of private and public housing, construction and development parties who have ensured that the city has become the national champion of transformation in 2015 and 2016. Not only the economic climate but also the living environment is growing strongly. Trudo, Woonbedrijf, Foolen & Rijs and also Stam and the Koning play an important role in this. In particular, the urbanisation zone from the railway station up to Strijp S is undergoing an enormous transformation. For a long time, Eindhoven’s quality of living was a weak point in the annual Atlas for Dutch Municipalities. I’m curious about the new Atlas findings in 2018.
Read also: Eindhoven is still leading the way in transformations
Transformation is about the reuse of existing buildings as residential objects. Initially, these buildings do not have a residential function, but after transformation they do. Together with Amsterdam, most of the housing transformations are realized in Eindhoven. According to the CBS, nearly 800 homes were created in existing buildings in Eindhoven, mainly office buildings. In the city, housing from transformations accounts for more than 40 percent of all dwellings added to the housing stock.
It is extra rewarding that Brabant, together with Zuid-Holland and Noord-Holland, is also the most active transformation province in the Netherlands. It is not for nothing that Brabant typifies transformation and redesign as “the new building”. On Monday, property advisor Savills stated that Eindhoven is more and more part of the G4 (Amsterdam, Utrecht, The Hague, Rotterdam) as far as real estate investment is concerned. There’s a nice momentum for mayor Jorritsma to have a serious discussion with his G4 colleagues.
Slow
The biggest challenge for the city is that the transformation champion no longer plays on stony fields. Especially in and around the inner city, the greening of public spaces and existing buildings is too slow; hardly anything is happening in that field. Fortunately, the municipality wants to invest millions in the team of champions by having the public space renovated as well. The real estate owners of the team can’t stay behind anymore, can they?
