A legendary place, where athletes worked up a sweat for five decades. “It’s time for an upgrade,” says Bé Kuipers of volleyball club VEB’98. In January 2024, the De Koel sports hall in Borger will be replaced by a new building. “We are saying goodbye to an era.”
The club wants to end these years in De Koel in style. That’s why they organized a concert in the ‘old’ sports hall. Early next year, the association invites everyone to reminisce during the party.
“We have always played sports in this sports hall with the volleyball club. Everyone here is of course attached to the old one, but due to certain shortcomings we are happy with a new hall,” says former chairman Bé Kuipers.
The wooden floor is an eye-catcher for the volleyball club, which they would have liked to keep. “Unfortunately, we have to say goodbye to that, but there will be a lot of good things in return. There are good plans and the building will fit in nicely with the whole, especially with the MFA (multifunctional accommodation, ed.) that is next to it.” A beautiful sports hall that can last another fifty years, that’s what Kuipers calls it.
“With this party we are of course trying to get everyone together again who has a memory of this sports hall. People who have played sports here for years come to take a look again,” says Kuipers. There are beautiful memories in the hall. “Then I immediately think of the clinics we had with the Dutch team and Lycurgus. These are always fun activities for the youth.”
The current Koel from 1968 is in need of replacement. For example, there is no dividing wall, which means that the room cannot be divided into several parts. This means that only one group or club can use the hall at a time.
In addition, both sports clubs and schools frequently use the hall, which causes the sports hall to become overcrowded. The new sports hall will therefore have a larger surface area than the current one: approximately 500 square meters will be added. The total costs for the new construction amount to 9 million euros.
The new construction will start at the beginning of January and the volleyball club will then no longer have its own hall for training and competitions for a number of months. “Finding a temporary solution for this is of course the biggest sticking point. We can go to the sports hall in Nieuw-Buinen for training and in the hall in 2e Exloërmond for competitions. The problem is that this involves further travel and everyone with the car is coming.”
The municipality does think about possible solutions, for example, the room rental for the club expires in those months and the members therefore have to pay less membership fees. Kuipers indicates that they are ready for a new building. “We are excited.”
According to the plans of Bouwgroep Dijkstra Draisma, construction should be completed in December 2024. The appearance of the sports hall will get a completely new look, not only from the outside, but also from the inside. The main entrance is on the first floor. The sports hall remains accessible to everyone, because the building is equipped with an elevator. The room can be divided into three parts. The new Koel also consists of a catering area with kitchen and canteen, a multifunctional room and six changing rooms.
The construction group is making an inventory of whether the materials released during the demolition of De Koel can be reused. The goal is for the vast majority of materials to be given a new purpose. “This could include using the old sports floor as a wall finish in the canteen.” The ambition also lies in creating an energy-neutral sports complex.