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For a long time, nothing had been heard about the plans for a cultural center in the Hag district. For the Waller Cultural Committee, it is high time to find out what is happening. The conclusion of the exchange: not a single stone has been moved in the buildings in question. But behind the scenes, most of the big hurdles have already been cleared away, it was said. The sponsoring association remains patient and optimistic, and the committee reaffirmed its support for the project.
The prehistory
A historic factory building that had long been forgotten. An environment in which many things would be possible: perfect for creating and showing art and culture. This is what the group of young people found when they presented their idea for a cultural center in the Hag quarter to the Waller Cultural Committee in autumn 2020. Compared to cities of a similar size, Bremen has a far smaller subcultural offering, according to the website of the “Center for Collective Culture” (ZfK) association, founded at the end of 2020 by actors in Bremen's subcultural scene who have long been looking for a permanent location. For young people, this is “a motivation that should not be underestimated to prefer other cities as a place to live and to leave Bremen”. Specifically, it is about three unrenovated neighboring brick buildings along Cuxhavener Strasse, which were once believed to have housed the development department of Kaffee Hag, workshops and apartments for company craftsmen. The approximately 1,770 square meters of usable space will be used to set up workshops, studios, rehearsal rooms, event rooms and exhibition spaces for culture beyond the mainstream. There was scepticism from the neighborhood. The Initiative Stadtbramischer Häfen (ISH) feared that the activities in a cultural center could disrupt operations in the surrounding companies and trigger a “domino effect” on the industrial environment.
What's wrong
“The process is dragging on,” reported ZfK spokespersons Sam Illguth and Carl Meinheit. The concerns of the port industry have been gradually allayed. In May 2023, a neighborhood declaration under private law was drawn up. However, a passage that specifies the association's activities in the land register still needs to be clarified and which still has to be worked out by the legal representatives of the ISH and the owner company. For example, it should stipulate in a binding manner how many larger and smaller events were negotiated jointly over the course of the year, as well as the maximum number of visitors. The plan is for Hag Quartier-GmbH to renovate the buildings. The association will take care of the interior work. However, the association will not rent the buildings directly, but will act as a subtenant of Immobilien Bremen (IB). Renting through the municipal company, however, involves additional requirements – above all, barrier-free accessibility of the properties, explained Meinheit. Site visits have already been carried out with representatives of the construction department and the state commissioner for people with disabilities.
What happens next
“It's going well,” says Meinheit. The rental agreement has not yet been signed. The association has only received verbal information from IB about the rent, so the association representatives did not want to comment on the amount. The plan is to sign the contract for a period of at least ten years. The long term is often a prerequisite for the approval of funding, explained Illguth. The city was promised three years of funding to make the project possible. In addition, according to Illguth, there is “an express wish from the culture department to subsequently convert the temporary funding into institutional funding.”
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