Ondernemershotel De Compaen will continue under the name De Drentse Werf. The Hoogeveen couple Ramon Mol and Ellen Sieders have taken over the building from real estate entrepreneur Wim de Vries from Groningen.
The building along Vos van Steenwijklaan had been for sale for some time and is currently still full of office spaces that are being rented out. Entrepreneurs need not fear, because the formula remains the same. However, the broom will go through the building considerably in the coming months.
“In recent years, little or no investment has been made in maintenance,” says Ramon Mol. “We are going to refurbish everything and realize new things, both inside and outside.”
Games hall
Before the sale, the couple rented the basement where they have an escape room. They plan to expand this further in the near future. “We supplement that with the rental of electric scooters,” explains Mol. “We also want to do something with Virtual Reality in our escape rooms. We don’t know exactly what that will look like yet.”
The entrepreneur himself has even bigger dreams. He hopes one day to realize a games hall at the bottom of the building. “In Hoogeveen there is actually very little to do for young people. The idea of an arcade hall, a place where you can play computer games, seems very cool to me. You see that the younger generation likes to go there. among that generation, so I secretly like it a lot myself.”
According to Mol, there must be a clear separation between work and entertainment. “A lot of entrepreneurs are working here during the week and people come to the escape room at the weekend. We would like to keep it that way, it should not clash. The concept that people use our offices and meeting rooms fits well here. we’re going to work out better and further.”
Maintenance
There is still a lot that needs to be done in the building before that happens. And the couple has already started doing that. The first offices and meeting rooms have been largely refurbished. “We repainted everything, changed the carpet and bought new furniture. We had to, because the interior was no longer up to date,” laughs the entrepreneur.
Outside, the trees and shrubs surrounding the building have been addressed. “A lot of pruning has been done to make everything tidy again. It’s not finished yet, but it’s a start.” Then it is the turn of the pond in front of the complex. “The intention is that a working fountain will be placed in it. You want to radiate something.”
Migrant workers
In November there was unrest at the entrepreneurial hotel. An unknown party investigated whether migrant workers could live in the building. An environmental permit was applied for for the plan, which eventually ended up on the municipal page of the local newspaper. This caused great confusion among the then owner and tenants of the building, because they knew nothing about it.
A spokesperson for the municipality later said that Hoogeveen is legally obliged to publish all applications that come in in the newspaper. In the end, the plan fell through and it was a matter of ‘misunderstanding’. Mol says that he is still bothered by this. “At that time we already had a purchase agreement. You are afraid that the people who rent a space from you will then leave.”
According to him, it still happens regularly that people think that migrant workers live there. “Visitors sometimes start talking about this, the story has stuck. Unfortunately, it has happened that new tenants have not chosen our location because of the entire incident. That is unfortunate and was also a reason for us to choose a new name for the complex.”
‘Good example’
The agreement with Roelof Linde, who was the manager of De Compaen, has also been terminated. “So it is completely ours,” says Mol. After the refurbishment, the new owners will investigate whether the building can be made more sustainable. “We would like to attract young entrepreneurs and show how we do it. Then of course you also have to set a good example. We hope that it will become a central place where many people like to come to work.”