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7.16 Million for a Library – Bookshelf Space More Expensive Than a Daycare Spot in Weißenfels€7.16 million for “golden bookshelves” in the dead prime retail location. Weißenfels proves once again: When nobody else wants it, you simply create a luxury library. 
Hallelujah, Weißenfels! The city center has finally found its purpose.After decades of courageous inaction, endless vacancies, the glorious departure of Müller Drugstore (the largest and only real magnet in the pedestrian zone), and the heroic failure of every serious attempt to bring in purchasing power, restaurants, or – God forbid – actually functioning retail, salvation has arrived: The public library is supposed to move into the former Müller department store. Right in the prime retail location. In the middle of Jüdenstraße. With a panoramic café, naturally. Current estimated cost: a laughable €7.16 million. A bargain! A vision! A triumph of urban intelligence!What city has the courage to put a library in a genuine prime retail location?Most cities hide their books somewhere on the outskirts, where nobody bothers them. Weißenfels thinks bigger. Here, knowledge is being brought to the very place where the masses once stockpiled shampoo and special offers. The pedestrian zone, which for years has been kept alive mainly by wind and despair, is finally getting a centerpiece that is guaranteed not to face any competition – simply because no other tenant could be found. And other ideas? If anyone had come up with anything over the past few decades that went beyond “window displays in vacant stores” and “we hope somebody comes along,” things wouldn't have ended up like this. So the library isn't Plan B. It's Plan Z, the only plan left. And that's brilliant.€275 per item – a luxury resort for paper and plastic in a premium location!Let's do the math. The public library currently occupies around 250 square meters in the Novalishaus and has – depending on the source and the year – a collection that was once reported at more than 40,000 items, while in more recent years it has been closer to 26,000 (books, CDs, DVDs, audiobooks, games, Tonies, and whatever else qualifies as a “media item”). Let's generously use 26,000 items as our basis for calculation. €7.16 million divided by 26,000 comes to – drumroll – approximately €275 per item.So every single mystery novel, every dusty nonfiction book, every DVD that nobody has borrowed for years gets a space that costs more than a daycare spot per month. The ongoing costs for the building and staff aren't even included. This isn't a library anymore. It's a five-star suite for paper and plastic in a premium location. The cost of the space per item is so high that you have to wonder whether the books will soon be lying on velvet and guarded by private bodyguards. “Excuse me, may I borrow this novel?” – “Only with a deposit and a DNA sample, sir.” The masses will flock there – or maybe notAnd the active users? The city keeps the exact figures remarkably discreet. In 2022, around 18,900 visitors (school classes and special activity days certainly included) and roughly 80,000 loans were recorded, along with a few hundred new registrations. With just under 38,000 residents, that's… well… modest. The “masses” who will soon flock to the new prime-location library are therefore likely to remain within manageable dimensions. Maybe the same loyal regulars who have always come will show up. Or maybe they won't. Because patterns of library use have changed radically over the past few decades: physical borrowing has been declining in the long term, digital services are increasing, and the number of public libraries in Germany has fallen by around 17 percent since 2010. Libraries are evolving into “third places,” meeting spots, event spaces, and Wi-Fi hotspots. But for that, you don't necessarily need the most expensive location in the city – the very location where nobody wanted to shop before.When nobody else wants it, the library is the only answerBut hey: If no retailer, no café operator, no creative startup, and no investor is interested in the prime location, then that's the best confirmation that a library belongs there. Finally, a place that doesn't have to make money, doesn't have to generate sales, and doesn't have to attract foot traffic that actually spends money. The city center will be revitalized – by people quietly saying “Shhh!” and perhaps having a coffee at the panoramic café before heading home and ordering online. The masses will flock there. Or they won't. But at least €7.16 million will have been spent on something nobody else wanted.Weißenfels, you are a role model for urban surrenderOther cities are surely looking on enviously and thinking: “Why didn't we also bravely give up and simply put the library into the dead store?” Keep it up. The future of the pedestrian zone is a quiet reading room with panoramic views of emptiness. And that is – let's be honest – kind of poetic, isn't it?Author: AI-Translation - АИИ | |
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