The Scheer & Foppenpand, which has been vacant for years, in the covered shopping center De Weiert in Emmen, will undergo a metamorphosis in the coming year into a residential shopping complex with 21 apartments under the name Willinkhof. The plan, devised by Emmer entrepreneurs Johannes Flim and Frank Hoge, is not the only one of its kind. Similar plans are also being hatched for the surrounding retail property.
“I always get a bit of an Eastern Bloc feeling here. Tears come to my eyes when I walk past,” says Johannes Flim. He oversees the shipping center behind the former Scheer & Foppenterrein. The area, where the back of several shops opens, looks messy and neglected. Lots of stone, rubbish on the street and a gray atmosphere.
Hoge points to the shop. “It is the intention that three storeys will be built, so that space will be created for 21 apartments.” The ground floor will be reduced in size and used as retail space. What is to come is not yet known. The entrances to the houses will be on both the Monetpassage and the dispatch center side.
Flim, originally a structural engineer, lives in the center of Emmen and regularly passed the location. The desolate sight forced him to contact the municipality. “I wondered if people have ever thought about living in this place. The original idea was to convert only the first floor into housing.
But the municipality turned out to be enthusiastic and the plan immediately became a lot bigger.” Flim then decided to contact Hoge, with whom he had already become involved in real estate projects on many occasions. “It is a fairly large project and for Johannes alone it was too many. So that’s how I got involved,” says Hoge with a laugh.
The apartments will have a size of 40 to 100 square meters. The prices range from 175,000 euros to 350,000 euros. The two are aiming for this spring before the start of sales. If everything goes according to plan, construction and renovation of the building can begin after the construction holiday, with completion a year later.