Construction of hall 3A starts: time for the excavators

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Now it's time for the workers, tradesmen and engineers to get started on the biggest building site in Nürnberg-Langwasser: the new hall 3A is under construction. The co-partners Maly/Söder and Co-Managing Directors Fleck/Ottmann – together with the Chief Executive Officer of Spielwarenmesse eG Ernst Kick and the representative of the architects Zaha Hadid – have now officially launched work on the building. The building site is located next to hall 4A in Große Straße on the former Nazi Party Rally Grounds. The architecture of the building of some 9,000 square metres is spectacular, and the handover date is ambitious: everything must be finished by February 2014.

The players cut the first sod using excavators instead of spades, or more precisely: toy excavators. Certainly appropriate in view of the fact that the International Toy Fair will be the first to use the hall and is also contributing to its implementation with a loan.

Building cranes dominate the skyline of NürnbergMesse yet again. Four of them reach into the sky between halls 3 and 4A. Another quick change of scenery is assured by the short construction time of 18 months, in which the hall is to be erected on an area distinctly larger than a FIFA World Cup football pitch. 3,290 tons of steel (weighing about half as much as the Eifel Tower!) and 2,750 square metres of glass (equivalent to 346,000 glass water bottles) – plus various other materials – are to be incorporated in the building by then.

Before Dr. Ulrich Maly, Chairman of the Supervisory Board and Lord Mayor, buried the bucket of his excavator in the sand, he found the right words for this further expansion of Nürnberg's exhibition infrastructure: "The success of the Nürnberg exhibition and congress venue radiates over the whole region. The events provide some 20,000 direct and indirect jobs in the city and region and an annual revenue of more than a billion euros, factors that strengthen the economic power in the long term."

The Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Dr. Markus Söder, Finance Minister, commented on the construction of hall 3A: "With more than 170,000 square metres of space after the expansion, the exhibition site is almost as large as the Stuttgart and Hamburg sites together!" This investment will make the Nürnberg exhibition and congress venue more important in international competition. "The Free State of Bavaria is like an ellipse with two power centres and two globally operating exhibition companies, " says Söder. "The Bavarian state government as partner of NürnbergMesse fully supports the expansion of the exhibition site with this hall. This benefits the whole Nürnberg Metropolitan Region!"

In his speech marking the official start of construction, NürnbergMesse Managing Director Dr. Roland Fleck announced that a million euros more than originally decided is being invested in the new hall: "In the course of the planning process undertaken under great pressure of time, we have recognized and taken advantage of an engineering opportunity to extend the area of the hall by 900 to around 9, 000 square metres at very low extra cost. With the approval of the supervisory board, NürnbergMesse will therefore now invest 37 million euros in the new building instead of 36 million euros!"

Anyone standing on the building site at the south-east corner of the exhibition and congress site would find the construction of the hall as extremely logical: "Hall 3A functions as a hinge between the east connection and a future south line on the one hand and will be the future advertisement for NürnbergMesse for all those arriving there for events in the 'exhibition – arena – stadium' triangle on the other. Three halls can then be used along the Große Straße – and a Convention Centre. All the buildings are specimens but the whole is still more than the sum of its parts, " says Dr. Roland Fleck, Managing Director of NürnbergMesse.

The new hall itself also sets new architectural trends. It was already clear from the impression of the building created by the three-dimensional visualization set up on the building site during the ceremony that the design by Zaha Hadid Architects would be an eyecatcher, a design milestone.

The International Toy Fair has been the accelerating force behind the expansion of the Nürnberg exhibition location right from the beginning. This time it is also the growth of the world's leading toy fair that provides the motivation for building another hall on the Nürnberg exhibition site: "The International Toy Fair was and is the catalyst for the growth of capacity at the Nürnberg exhibition venue, " says NürnbergMesse Managing Director Dr. Roland Fleck: "Or in view of the Norisring motor racing circuit in our direct vicinity, let's call it the 'turbocharger' for Nürnberg's exhibition engine. The outstanding and fair cooperation with Spielwarenmesse eG is certainly currently shown by the construction of this hall, but also by the recent extension of the general agreement between Spielwarenmesse eG and NürnbergMesse GmbH until 2021."

A statement that Ernst Kick, Chief Executive Officer of Spielwarenmesse eG, confirms: "We are delighted to be here for cutting the first sod for the future of the exhibition site and the exhibition city, because our contractual and financial commitment to the construction of hall 3A emphasizes that the International Toy Fair belongs here in Nürnberg."

The fact that NürnbergMesse and Spielwarenmesse eG agree on the necessity for the new hall also benefits other organizers and exhibitions. A new hall for the growth of other exhibitions, such as the combination of HOLZ-HANDWERK and fensterbau/frontale, and later SPS IPC Drives too, but also for additional events for which otherwise space or a date would possibly not have been found. "We are now in the fortunate situation that we have our work cut out accommodating our events during the year but are still able to answer organizers' inquiries positively, " says Managing Director Peter Ottmann. So the new hall is an expression of the great growth of the Nürnberg exhibition venue? "Yes, not the only International Toy Fair needs the extra space, " Ottmann adds, "the new hall is a blessing for other events too. Not because every exhibition is already so large, but because it enables us to basically increase the utilization of the site by organizing several events at the same time."

The client for the new hall is NürnbergMesse, Spielwarenmesse eG provided a loan for it. Ernst Kick, Chief Executive Officer of Spielwarenmesse eG, is particularly pleased that the hall is larger than originally planned. It is namely ten metres longer and now reaches 105 metres (with a width of 85 metres). NürnbergMesse Managing Director Dr.Fleck is pleased that the extra 900 square metres only cost a million euros more: "I call that an attractive square metre price. This hall 3A is a real investment in the future!"

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