After a short construction period, Aachen’s police department moved into a new, ultramodern, and sustainable headquarters building in early 2019. A special feature of this project is that the building was constructed by a public-private partnership (PPP). This is an important flagship project for HOCHTIEF as well. 

Cool shapes, clear lines, and practical elegance are attributes that are associated with Bauhaus architecture. This art school is in the news these days because it celebrated its centenary this year. Initially based in Weimar, the Bauhaus later moved to Dessau and then to Berlin. Only a few days after the Bauhaus anniversary in the spring of 2019, the Aachen police department moved into a new headquarters building that would probably have appealed to Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius. The new building was constructed by HOCHTIEF Infrastructure at the behest of HOCHTIEF PPP Solutions. Cool shapes, clear lines, and practical elegance characterize the building’s facades as well as its nearly 22,500 square meters of rental area. 

That’s correct: rental area. The new Aachen Police Headquarters is not only a “great building” from an architectural standpoint, as North Rhine-Westphalia’s Interior Minister Herbert Reul stated in his speech at its festive inauguration, but also an unusual project. That’s because the new building, which is spectacular but by no means oversized, is the result of a PPP. During the ceremony, Reul called it a “flagship project.”

HOCHTIEF had previously built schools, city halls, kindergartens, and highways in PPP projects. In such projects, the company plans, funds, and constructs the facility and subsequently operates it for a certain length of time. However, a police headquarters, which has special requirements, was something completely new for HOCHTIEF. 

The project was preceded by a search for an approximately 21,000-square-meter building site that would meet the special requirements of a police headquarters, such as short driving distances and good radio reception.  

After HOCHTIEF acquired the site following lengthy negotiations, it planned, funded, built, and handed over the cubistic building complex. The facility is now being rented to the police, and HOCHTIEF will be responsible for its operation and maintenance for the next 20 years, with an optional extension until 2043. 

From the perspective of HOCHTIEF PPP Solutions, this is a challenging but achievable task, which is being jointly carried out in close coordination with the user, the police department. Sandra Arendt, the General Manager of the Social Infrastructure Europe business unit at HOCHTIEF PPP Solutions, says, “In view of the fact that it houses 1,200 employees, you need close, constructive cooperation in order to successfully define and fulfill the diverse requirements that a future-oriented police headquarters has to meet in terms of functionality, technology, and logistics.”

But what does “successfully” mean in this particular case? For one thing, it means that the project is fit for purpose, because the long-term division of responsibilities means that the headquarters can be operated in ways that are cost-effective, efficient, and state-of-the-art. However, in this age of climate crisis, “successfully” also means “sustainably.”

Together with the client, HOCHTIEF PPP Solutions and the local architect’s office Hahn Helten Assoziierte systematically made sure that the facility would be highly energy-efficient and consume few resources so that emissions and resource consumption could be minimized during the building’s construction and operation. For example, the complex has a high-performance photovoltaic system on the roof, heating and cooling systems based on geothermal energy, and good connections to the public transportation system.

The headquarters also has parking spaces for 450 cars in 32 garages, 56 carports, and elsewhere. These are necessary due to the daily activities of the new police headquarters and the institution it houses. Offices account for 75 percent of the new headquarters, and the rest is occupied by a maintenance depot, a sports facility, a police station, a jail, and a dog kennel. One of the new facility’s key concepts is a focus on the citizen. That is reflected by its location in the front row of a business park and by the fact that the canteen is accessible to the public.

“Thanks to the many years of experience that the colleagues at HOCHTIEF PPP Solutions have acquired through a variety of operations and services, the facility is being operated at full capacity as expected, without any incidents worth mentioning,” says Gerald Hauke, a communications expert at HOCHTIEF PPP Solutions. 

The fact that this large-scale project was completed on time is a great achievement in and of itself, according to the new facility’s satisfied main tenant, Aachen’s Police President Dirk Weinspach. His superior, the Interior Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, put it this way: “It’s a real milestone — cool, clear, practical, and elegant. What’s more, the contract signing was followed in less than four years by the commissioning of the new building.”

After only 27 months of construction, the major project "Polizeipräsidium Aachen" was completed on time. HOCHTIEF participated in the ceremonial inauguration of the new building complex.