Not one but two apartment complexes will be built on the site of café The Spot and a former bakery building on Vaart ZZ in Erica. Property owner Hans Rohling has now issued an application. If all goes well, he expects to be able to start demolition of the current buildings in June.
Rohling has been walking around with new construction plans for more than three years on the site of his old café and the adjoining bakery, both of which have been closed for some time. Around that time he bought the former Koperbar on Havenstraat, which he has been running ever since as the new The Spot.
He came up with a plan for a complex with twelve apartments, spread over three floors. Rohling had conceived the initiative as a project that would provide him with a nice pension in the coming years. Subsequently, a lot of bickering took place between him and the municipality of Emmen about, among other things, the size and appearance of the new building.
Rohling eventually sought out the complaints coordinator at the municipality. He spoke at the time of ‘an impossible situation’ that had arisen. Now things are moving again. “It’s not like I wanted, but at some point you have to move on.”
In consultation with the municipality, it was decided not to build not one, but two complexes with ten homes. “One of three floors with six apartments and one of two floors with four apartments,” he explains. The living area is between 80 and 120 square meters, according to Rohling.
An application has now gone out. As soon as the demolition is over, the catering industry expects to be able to build in August or September. The delivery then follows a year later.
Last summer, Rohling also suddenly offered the second The Spot on Havenstraat for sale on Facebook. At the time, he gave the reason that he was just done with it. It has not led to serious interest, he says. “But it is not the intention that I will be there for years to come. Maybe I will also submit an application for apartments for this location.”