Theater De Lievekamp in Oss will definitively reuse the empty Zuiderstrandtheater in The Hague for new construction. The municipality of Oss decided on Thursday to buy the theater in The Hague and move to Brabant. “A great opportunity,” the alderman calls it.
While making new plans for the outdated theater De Lievekamp, director Coen Bais received a special offer. Buying, tearing down, moving and rebuilding the Zuiderstrandtheater piece by piece. He agreed, but the municipality also had to approve and pay for the plan.
All political parties in Oss are enthusiastic about the plan. Thursday it was unanimously decided to buy the theater. Oss will pay 1,173,000 euros to the municipality of The Hague for this. Incidentally, the theater in The Hague is too small for all the plans for the new Lievekamp. There will also be a lot added. The total costs are therefore higher than the amount that the municipality of Oss pays to The Hague.
“It is very special that a theater is built in a circular manner.”
However, there are still some doubts among the parties about the construction costs. Alderman Frank den Brok does not yet know whether buying and reusing the existing theater will be cheaper or more expensive than new construction.
Building with previously used materials would have several advantages. For example, the plans do not have to take into account the ever-increasing prices of building materials. They have already been bought by purchasing the theater in The Hague. Construction can also be completed more quickly, because the materials have already been delivered.
Fellow alderman Dolf Warris expects the municipality to receive extra money for the project. “It is very special that a theater is built in a circular manner. As a result, we can rely on all kinds of funds and subsidies. In the Netherlands and Europe.”
“We don’t want it to look like a second-hand theatre.”
Now that the sale is final, the plans can be worked out. One thing is certain: the Zuiderstrandtheater will still be recognizable from the inside, but not from the outside. “It will be a completely new building. We absolutely want to prevent it from looking like a second-hand theater, so there will be a completely different exterior around it,” said the director of the Osse theater earlier. “We don’t know yet what it will look like.”
The Zuiderstrandtheater must be out of Scheveningen by December 31 of this year. In Oss they are still working on the plans and design of the new theater. In the meantime, the parts of the theater in The Hague are numbered and stored.
If all goes well, the first performance in the new Lievekamp can be seen in 2025.
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