The New Citizen sets the tone in Nieuwegein

Under the name City, the western side of Nieuwegein's downtown area is currently undergoing large-scale redevelopment. With a new public transport hub and 2,200 new homes, the municipality wants to make Nieuwegein more attractive as a residential area next to its big neighbor Utrecht. Living in the provincial capital has become almost unaffordable, so why not live less than fifteen minutes from Utrecht CS, with the express streetcar stopping on your doorstep? By the middle of next year this will be possible in The New Citizen, a residential tower with 128 apartments that will stand like an exclamation point next to the yet-to-be-built public transport hub. It is the first residential tower to mark Nieuwegein's new downtown area.

The New Citizen is part of the Weverstede project, a development by Fresch Real Estate that also consists of two lower residential towers on a residential block along with another developer. The lower towers have since been resold; The New Citizen remains the property of Fresch. Fresch's involvement has its origins in 2015. Guido Schmitt, partner at developer Fresch Real Estate: "About eight years back, we started buying the first office buildings in this area, with the intention of refurbishing them to label A. In the meantime, the municipality of Nieuwegein and the province of Utrecht had conceived the plan to upgrade the west side of the center area. We were asked to think along with them. We then engaged Urban Climate Architects, with whom we had done previous projects, to take a critical look at the feasibility together. We handled that very carefully and patiently, and that led to a final plan for this subarea on Zuidstedeweg."

There are (and have been) many office buildings in the area that are 20 or 30 years old. "There was an attempt for some time to convert these types of offices into residential buildings," says Dennis Hauer, architect and principal of Urbane Climate Architects (UCA). "However, they proved to have limited sustainability and the catch-up you have to do to bring them up to an acceptable level energetically is too great and makes demolition and new construction cheaper. The municipality now has a different view of how you develop and use such an area, which is why more buildings are now nominated for demolition. The goal is to make it an attractive urban area with greater density, turn the introverted shopping center outward, and address public transportation. We worked closely with the municipality's urban planning department so that we could take its vision with our plans and respond to it." 

"What is remarkable in this project is the role of the province," Schmitt adds. "It participated enthusiastically from the beginning and played an important role - not only with money - as a booster. It took important steps that allowed the municipality to move forward with the process quickly. As a developer you are normally not a discussion partner of the province, that is the municipality, but here everyone was at the table and that certainly has to do with the importance of this development in relation to the city of Utrecht. I think that is a boost and for the future I would like to see the province play an active role in area development more often."  

The result of this process is a group of buildings - towers A, B and C of 35, 45 and 65 meters high, respectively, the first two of which stand on a shared substructure. "We were not allowed to go higher than 65 meters," Hauer states. "With the rising height, we created a striking point and accent from the corner, which has limited shadow effects on the other parts of the plan. We had as an initial concept the Brooklyn versus Manhattan dichotomy, more closed versus more open. Tower A and B are executed as a brick building block in this concept, tower C, which has come to be called The New Citizen, is more extrovert and lighter in color and material. This tallest tower is elaborated with ceramic tiles on the lower six levels and with an aluminum facade with larger glass openings on the higher levels. This division also has to do with the noise pollution from the Zuidstedeweg. A vertical green wedge from the third to the top layer breaks up the large volume and brings biodiversity to a greater height." 

The construction of The New Citizen is being carried out by Akor with René van Dompseler conducting construction management on behalf of Fresch. Schmitt: "With UCA and several consultants, including Overdevest and Diocon, we did the design phase in BIM up to the building application. For the follow-up process, we were looking for a party that could calculate and think with us in a construction team context and 100% wanted to participate on a risk basis. This turned out to be something only Akor was willing to do, which turned out to be a good move. They developed the project technically and converted it to almost entirely prefabricated." Project manager on behalf of Akor is Jeffrey Ossendrijver: "We took the BIM model from UCA, modified it where necessary, turned it into a coordination model and developed it further with our construction partners. The tower is 21 stories high and is right next to the streetcar stop, which is not something you want to do traditionally. In an uncertain market, the longer construction time alone is reason enough to work in prefab. And it's logistically more manageable."

Only the foundation of The New Citizen was poured on site with drilled piles to minimize inconvenience. Ossendrijver: "Everything above that we engineered and built in precast. For the shell, we used the CD20 system with thin floors, which allowed us to make a floor every week. WVH's fully precast facade followed shortly after this so that the floors were quickly wind- and watertight for finishing. In week 5 we started with the precast concrete walls on the second floor, just before the summer break we celebrated the highest point with the structural work and by the end of September the entire facade was in place. This is only possible with precast and also scaffolding-free. The balconies were attached afterwards." Developer Schmitt is still impressed, "How our tower was realized: everything fitted together flawlessly like Lego blocks. We usually take that for granted, but it went unprecedentedly well and quickly, right down to the finishing touches."

The New Citizen is also a sustainable building. Hauer: "The Trias Energetica starts with reducing demand, and the heat demand here is just very low. That's mainly achieved with a CHP system being installed with Eneco for the Weverstede. Additional energy generation is done with PV panels on the roofs. The homes are equipped with a balanced ventilation system and have a well-insulated shell with triple glazing, underfloor heating and cooling. Very comfortable, and the windows can be opened, even along Zuidstedeweg. With window frames down to ground level on the higher floors, that gives an extra pleasant living experience."

The new residential tower is a handsome addition that marks the start of Nieuwegein's renewed downtown area. "With its location less than fifteen minutes by streetcar to the city center of Utrecht, we are serving a large target group with high-quality housing," Schmitt concludes. "This was evident from the more than two and a half thousand registrations we received and the large turnout at the open day. We face the future of Nieuwegein with great confidence."