“Gunner, you may fire.” The first captain shouts the order to Joop Slomp from the Weeshuisweide. The Coevorder alderman then immediately puts the flame in the fuse of a huge cannon. Seconds later, the colossus spews fire and the ground shakes with the thunderous blow. Spectacle everywhere at the castle and the town hall of the fortified town. And for good reason.
With that bang, the peak of the enormous facelift that awaits the city center was officially kicked off. The Weeshuisweide, the first phase, will be tackled first. Now a largely simple lawn, soon the ‘Vondelparkje’ of Coevorden.
The Weeshuisweide is going to undergo a major overhaul in the coming year. This has already partly happened, in the form of a freshly dug trench right through the meadow. A reference to the course of the former citadel moat. The water returns near the town hall, but the canal is mainly filled with a sea of blue flowers.
Along the edges of the meadow there will be a berceau, a kind of deciduous corridor, which can soon be entered through iron gates. Finally, there will also be a theater place. The underlying parking lot on the Weeshuisstraat will disappear, but extra spaces will be created on the Molenbelt, a stone’s throw away. The entire project will cost 1.3 million euros, two hundred thousand euros less than announced last year.
The approach to the Orphanage Meadow is part of the Castle Park Plan, which was presented in 2018. In addition to the Weeshuisweide, the Markt, the Haven and the Citadelpunt (nearby the old Rabobank) are also part of the plans, in which the history and stories of the old fortified city are given a leading role. For example, the old market hall returns and the harbor is extended into the center. All in all, the municipality is allocating more than eight million euros for this.
Coevorden wants to make the leap from shopping to more of a visitor city, explains project manager Gert van der Kooi of the municipality of Coevorden. “Coevorden was struggling with a lot of vacancy until a few years ago.” It also turned out to be tough to compete against the surrounding shopping cities.
That is why it was thought that the helm had to be changed. The rich past of the old Coevorden must become a trump card in the new layout in attracting visitors. De Ganzenstad has already worked on this, such as the installation of city mosaics and the desire to make the foundation of the Bentheimer gate visible again.