The Boateng brothers played football in this sports center in the Märkisches district as children. Now the sad endgame for the halls. They are to be demolished.
“Anyone who scores a goal will get an ice cream from me later,” says Hartmut Schlehuber (79) to a group of boys on the soccer field. He has been the owner of “Squash Tennis Nord” for more than 25 years – and fights for the preservation of the sports facility.
The center opened in 1979. Today, 90,000 visitors use the halls, not only recreational athletes but also the Waldorf school and clubs. A popular meeting place for young and old, children spend their afternoons here, seniors keep fit.
The property at Treuenbrietzener Straße 36 belongs to Gesobau. The lease expires on May 1 and will not be extended.
Because: The state-owned housing company wants to demolish the halls and instead create compensation areas for 25 allotments on the site, which had to give way to housing construction elsewhere.
The Senate Department for Urban Development supports Gesobau’s plans. A spokesman for the BZ: “If these compensation areas can be used to build new housing in Berlin, that is in our interest and good for our city.”
Operators and visitors cannot understand that. “It is not sporting behavior on the part of the Senate and Gesobau to take a sports facility away from people,” says Schlehuber. “The need for sport is so great. It’s unreasonable.”
He is attached to this location with all his heart, which is why he continues to support the preservation of the halls.
Schlehuber doesn’t have much time. Most recently, he wrote a letter to District Mayor Uwe Brockhausen (58, SPD).
Reinickendorf’s administration has not yet commented on the BZ request.
