Villa Luna opens in the health center
Dortmund city center will have a new daycare center starting Monday, August 7. The 50-place childcare facility, run by the independent provider Villa Luna, is an important part of the redevelopment of the Neues Gesundheitshaus, which is being converted into a modern mixed-use complex by Landmarken AG after seven decades of official use.
With 930 square meters plus outdoor space, the children have plenty of room to play, move around, and explore. The premises have been furnished with great attention to detail in accordance with monument protection regulations, creating a family atmosphere in which children feel comfortable and can develop according to their talents. A special highlight is the daycare center's 740-square-meter outdoor area with play equipment, which was created by greening the inner courtyard of the health center, which was previously used as a parking lot.
"The daycare center brings a lot of life to this location," said Sylvia Friederich, member of the Landmarken management team, adding: "The fact that the children can now play on a green space and that other users no longer have to look out onto a gray courtyard is a nice detail that fits in well with the usage concept."
"We are very much looking forward to bringing our modern, bilingual concept to Dortmund and implementing it in this special building," says Dr. Jürgen Reul, founder and managing director of Villa Luna daycare centers. "This is now the sixth joint daycare project that we have realized with Landmarken since 2005."
eighteen employees will care for up to 85 children aged 4 months to school age. Two of the groups are intended for children up to three years of age, while the other groups will care for two- and three- to six-year-olds. Villa Luna Dortmund is managed by André Nilkowski and Nicole Möslein. The places in the daycare center, which offers bilingual education based on the immersion principle with at least one English-speaking specialist, are publicly funded. The entrance to the daycare center is on Kuhstraße.
The largest user in the Gesundheitshaus is the design hotel chain prizeotel, which operates a 154-bed hotel with a sky bar on around 6,000 square meters in the largest part of the building on Hövelstraße. Another tenant is AOK NordWest, which will establish one of the most modern customer centers in Westphalia-Lippe on an area of around 900 square meters. The opening in the building wing on Kuhstraße/Eisenmarkt is planned for the end of the year. Just under 1,000 square meters of office space is still available, and Landmarken is already in concrete talks with prospective tenants. In addition, ten residential units are being built in the complex.
The health center, designed by Will Schwarz, is an important witness to the architecture of the 1950s. "There is hardly a comparable treasure in our country," says Norbert Hermanns, founder and investor of Landmarken, who will keep the health center in his portfolio for the long term. In total, the striking ensemble of six buildings has a gross floor area of around 12,900 square meters. The site covers approximately 4,500 square meters.
With its idea of converting the building complex, which had been used by public authorities for 70 years, into a vibrant mixed-use property, Landmarken AG won the City of Dortmund's investor selection process for the health center in 2018. The concept of thoroughly renovating and completely reinterpreting this post-war icon in Dortmund in close coordination with the historic preservation authorities has already won an award. In 2020, Landmarken AG won the coveted polis Award in silver in the Reactivated Centers category for this project.
