New buildings in Frankfurt’s historic city center – cornerstone is laid for the DomRömer project

Around halfway through the construction period, on 23rd January 2012, the cornerstone for the new buildings in Frankfurt’s historic city center was laid by the city’s Mayor, Dr. Petra Roth. The project has been the focus of much public interest.

250 guests from the worlds of politics, business and the media, including representatives of KREBS+KIEFER, were invited to the ceremony in the Archeological Garden between the Römer (city hall) and the Dom (cathedral).

In the book published on the occasion of KREBS+KIEFER’s 60-year jubilee in 2010, a double-page spread entitled „Bauingenieure gestalten Lebenswelten - Bauten in Frank­furt“ (Civil engineers design living environments – buildings in Frankfurt) is devoted to selected projects in Frankfurt. Since the beginning of 2011, this title has had a new meaning. In addition to a wide variety of planning and checking tasks, KREBS+KIEFER’s construction management department is responsible for the construction procedure - starting with the tender and contract award procedures - for this complex project which involves alterations to the DomRömer underground parking facility and the construction of the foundation level for the new buildings in Frankfurt’s historic city center, a project that is very much in the public eye.

In addition, after completion of the site preparations, our role in health and safety coordination was continued and expanded with the demolition of the Technische Rathaus building.

We were successful in convincing the owner, the city-owned DomRömer GmbH project company, that an optimal combination of planning knowledge, project management competence, experience in tender procedures and contract awarding and above all, an in-depth understanding of construction projects would be required to realize this project.

Partly due to previous negative experience during project development, the owner made a decision based on technical considerations and personal confidence to make a clean break at the end of the execution planning phase and to initiate a review of the quality of the architect’s plans when we joined the project at the tender procedure stage.

We were able to identify significant optimization potential in the planned construction procedure as well as in the level of detail and planning of temporary structures and of the different stages of construction. Through the early involvement of KREBS+KIEFER construction management, it was possible to carry out this optimization in agreement with the relevant planners before the construction contracts were signed, thus giving the owner more reliable cost and schedule information.

Since the construction contract was signed in May 2011, we have been on site constantly as part of our project supervision role, reacting immediately to the many challenges involved in inner-city construction projects surrounded by existing buildings. Special attention must be paid to the ballasting procedure which is a permanent feature due to uplift problems with the existing underground parking facility as well as to the safety requirements and constraints resulting from the project’s possible effects on third parties (neighbors, Frankfurter Dom cathedral, Kunstverein and Schirn art galleries and the city transport company’s metro and tram facilities).