Legal professionals are relocating to the urban core
In a significant step towards integrating the university into city society, Bremen University's Faculty of Law, along with its 1,500 students and 160 employees, will be moving into the NordLB building at Domshof from 2024. The decision was made following the second inner-city summit in April 2021, with Mayor Andreas Bovenschulte (SPD) expressing his enthusiasm for the move.
The university will rent approximately 18,150 square meters of space in the NordLB building, paying 232,500 euros per month. However, the lack of a large lecture hall in the building has raised concerns, with temporary solutions such as using the Musical Theater or the Glockenspiel being considered for the medium term.
The move is part of the university's strategy to be more visible to city society and to establish a large lecture hall in the inner city. The university is also looking for another building in the city centre for a long-term solution, but no specific locations have been named yet.
Feasibility studies for potential inner-city locations for scientific institutions, student housing, and work will be commissioned in the first or second quarter of 2023. When evaluating potential locations, planners might consider factors such as accessibility, sustainability, community engagement, and economic impact.
Potential areas for development include the historic city centre, Neustadt, Vahr, Hochschulring, and Industriehafen. The university president, Jutta Günther, has expressed her pleasure about the planned new location, as it provides direct transport connections to the existing campus in the Technology Park. The law sciences will be settled there, and flexibly usable rooms will enable better interaction with city society.
The City Initiative welcomes the move, seeing it as a positive development for Bremen's city centre, potentially leading to new settlements in the culture, leisure, and culinary sectors. However, criticism of the Senate's decision comes from the CDU, who question the cost-benefit analysis, funding plan, and the lack of a suitable lecture hall. Despite these concerns, negotiations on a rental agreement for the NordLB building started in November 2021, and the university can continue to use the existing lecture hall on the campus in the short term. The first results are expected at the beginning of 2024.
The university, with a focus on education-and-self-development, aims to establish a large lecture hall in the inner city, such as the historic city centre, Neustadt, Vahr, Hochschulring, or Industriehafen, as part of its strategy to be more visible to city society, with the move into the NordLB building at Domshof from 2024 serving as the first step in this endeavour. The university president, Jutta Günther, envisions this new location, particularly the law sciences, will foster better interaction with city society due to the availability of flexibly usable rooms.
