The error with the 500 decorative plates is not the first occurrence with the De Nieuwe Kolk building. Over the past ten years, quite a few shortcomings have surfaced. In 2013, a year after it opened, part of the library’s ceiling came down. “It was really lucky that no one was walking under at that time”, DNK director Hanneke Bruggeman recently sighed.
In 2014, the stage floors in both theaters were replaced because they were not good. And in 2015, part of the suspended ceiling in the parking garage collapsed, preventing dozens of cars from leaving the parking garage.
After that it seemed to go well for a while. But in 2020, a serious roof leak had to be repaired for many tons, which they had been suffering from in DNK for years. The concrete floor slabs in the building were also reinforced at that time. That was for security reasons. Three years earlier, Airport Eindhoven’s parking garage, which had been built by BAM with the same floor construction, collapsed.
A large part of all repair costs has been borne by the builder. But the joint owners also had to cough up money for repair work, because BAM did not want to take care of everything. It is not yet clear how much all this has cost the parties involved.
In 2012, BAM received a bonus of 1.5 million euros from the municipality of Assen, because the construction of the 100 million cultural palace, including apartments, commercial spaces and parking garage, was completed on time. The schedule for this was tight, because De Nieuwe Kolk had to be able to run in September 2012 with the new theater season.
BAM and the municipality had made agreements about this in advance. Because Assen wanted to keep up the pace in the construction project with the bonus. Afterwards, a lot of beauty flaws in the building surfaced.
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