The Old Brewery only gets hit once. Seventeen years after the opening of the iconic Poznan development, it is increasingly difficult to believe in another successful reworking of post-industrial buildings. Hopes for a coherent development of the industrial outskirts of the Old Town may collapse as spectacularly as the chimney of the former thermal power plant, which has just been demolished.
The chimney is nothing to regret. Situated on Ostrów Tumski, it had been spoiling views of the cathedral and its surroundings since the 1970s. A lot of conflicting emotions, on the other hand, are raised by investment plans for the northern outskirts of the Old Town, where there is not only a defunct power plant, but also an old city slaughterhouse, a historic sewage pumping station, the site of a former river port, a coffee roasting plant and a former PKP freight station. There's also the Bogdanka artificial ice rink and an attractive wooded wasteland. The transportation backbone of the whole is the northern part of Garbary Street, which is to be used in a few years by a streetcar to the Naramowice district. "Garbary gray mary, " sang Bohdan Smoleń in the 1970s, which, still, captures the atmosphere of the place well.
Old Slaughterhouse - general view from the southwest. On the left the edge of the future city park is visible, in the background - Citadel Park. On the right - behind the slaughterhouse, the buildings of the former Garbary thermal power plant (after demolition of the chimney).
Photo: Jakub Głaz
a challenge for urban planners
The area begins a few hundred meters north of the Old Market, bounded by the Warta River, the historic St. Adalbert's Hill and the Citadel Park. It is cut off from the Old Town by the so-called Chwaliszewska Route , a wide artery that half a century ago ripped apart the downtown area, Ostrów Tumski and the Śródka district. At the same time, several tenement houses that survived the war were demolished, exposing warehouses, annexes and outbuildings.
Only in the background, somewhat hidden, is the crown jewel of the entire area: The Old Slaughterhouse , a sprawling complex of historic architecture. Faced with yellow brick, the buildings with historicist forms were built at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, designed by Felix Moritz. Later, the slaughterhouse, rebuilt and densified with new buildings, lost its charm. Nuisance production ended here in 2000, but ownership and legal problems froze any adaptations for a long time.
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Old Slaughterhouse - the northern part, in the foreground the excavation after the demolished freezing plant. An office building is to be built in its place.
Photo: Jakub Głaz
The whole area thus looks like a great challenge for urban planners and decision-makers, who could creatively "stitch together" the Old Town with the park and the river, as well as the Poznan Garbary train station located here on the route to Warsaw and Gdansk. But the gauntlet was never picked up. Not only has there been no master plan for the attractive but difficult (among other things, issues of ownership and communications) area, but there is not even a local zoning plan. The only one that was passed was immediately invalidated by the PiS governor in 2006. The favorable solutions it contained were lost, as the city has still not drawn up a new document.
The plans are gone, and developers are once again entering the game - this time on a grand scale: at the Old Slaughterhouse and the CHP plant. Previously, new investments were created in spots and quite haphazardly: on Bóżnicza Street and in the old port. For the Old Slaughterhouse, new, better or worse concepts appeared every few years, envisaging mainly the construction of apartments, but also the use of historic buildings for commerce or education or offices. Most of the intentions sinned of being too dense.
Hope for a good design emerged two years ago, when the next owner , Vastint Poland, commissioned a team involving Jeju.studio and UGO Architecture under the direction of Przemyslaw Borkowicz's office. This respected designer is, among other things, the co-author (with Piotr Z. Barełkowski as Studio ADS) of Stary Browar, the iconic and award-winning shopping center (Phase I - 2003, Phase II - 2007) on the opposite, southern end of the Old Town.
A concept for the development of the slaughterhouse was presented last fall. It looked promising, although it too was struck by the rather intensive way in which the more than five hectares of the site were developed. The magistrate and the investor complimented each other, while the resilient and competent Old Town Estate Council had a more critical view related to the concept's traffic handling.
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Old Slaughterhouse - the central part behind the main gate, left: the slaughterhouse building planned for adaptation into an auditorium.
Photo: Jakub Głaz
Happily, the open character of the whole project was envisaged , so that the site would connect with its surroundings. The program includes three large office buildings and an equal number of residential complexes. Meanwhile, retail, services and an auditorium in a former slaughterhouse have been planned for the historic buildings. Parking spaces are envisaged mainly underground. A very important element of the concept is the extension of Bóżnicza Street, leading from the Old Town, towards the Citadel, on the border with the old trees planned for a city park and the planned Museum of the Wielkopolska Uprising. The city wants to build it on the site of the former ice rink (just closed), according to the design selected in the 2019 competition (first prize: WXCA).
Earlier this year, however, the paths of the designers and the owner of the slaughterhouse parted ways - it was unofficially heard that the architects did not want to make concessions leading to overly dense development. The work was entrusted to the JSK Architekci studio, known for its large office and infrastructure projects, but the application for development conditions was based on the work of its predecessors. In the spring of this year, the developer demolished most of the secondary buildings, including a massive freezer on the Garbary Street side. Historic preservationists are currently working on the complex. When more concrete will appear - it is not known exactly. One can only hope that all the historic buildings will be saved.
consequences of the lack of a plan
The opposite happened opposite the slaughterhouse in the former port. A few weeks ago, another investor, the VIRKE company, demolished the former warehouse building completely, despite the fact that the city's historic preservation officer had ordered the preservation of its original exterior walls. But even with the wall preserved, the project was controversial - part of the block was to be dwarfed by the overhanging of the one-story building of the neighboring captain's office. The idea is blatant, especially since the aggressive form literally squeezes in between two neighboring developments of a different shape, including - Echo Investment's residential complex just being completed on the site of a former coffee roasting plant - of a quality akin to an investment on the periphery rather than in the city center.
The 
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The building of the former captainate opposite the slaughterhouse on Garbary Street. To its right the space left by an illegally demolished warehouse, the wall of which was to be part of the VIRKE company's investment. In the background is the construction of the "Essence" estate being erected by Echo Investment.
Photo: Jakub Głaz
This chaos at the former port and roaster is, among other things, the result of the lack of a local plan. And while it is well known that a plan is not a miracle antidote (it happens that development conditions are more favorable), it can be a good bargaining chip in the case of investors focused on quick profit. Such a scenario on the northern outskirts of the Old City is already possible only in the case of the former thermal power plant. Located next door, but on the other bank of the river, the isolated building complex was built in 1929 and expanded after the war. Now it is to turn into a residential enclave for people with fatter wallets.
urbanistic frankenstein
The work on the plan, which had been dragging on for more than a dozen (!) years, gained momentum in connection with the idea of selling the area by the Dalkia company (it eventually sold it to Robyg). However, the provisions of the plan under preparation, prepared for dense and mono-functional development poorly connected with the rest of the city center, arouse controversy. The city's Urban Planning and Architectural Commission gave a critical opinion of the plan, while neighborhood councilors and naturalists are highly skeptical, calling for greater protection of existing greenery. Also unclear is how the oldest, historic part of the power plant will be developed (the chimney and newer buildings have just been demolished). The cursory visualizations shown by the developer in mid-November do not dispel any doubts. Only the announcement of participation in the construction of a new bridge over the Warta River resonated positively. Not only will it handle the new development, but it has been in the city's plans for years, as part of a new and necessary artery to take over traffic from the disastrous Chwaliszewska Route (this one is eventually to become a normal downtown street).
Historic sewage pumping station on the bank of the Warta River on the east side of Garbary Street. The building is intended for unspecified cultural or social purposes. Its function has been taken over by a new building, the wall of which is visible on the left. On the right: the railroad bridge over the Warta River. In front of it a bridge of a new automobile route is to be built in the future, freeing the Old Town from inter-district transit traffic.
Photo: Jakub Głaz
However, the city has no money for the time being to build this important bypass of the inner city. Instead, in a few years it intends to... rebuild the Chrobry Bridge over the Chwaliszewska Route - in a shape that will maintain the street's current express form. This decision proves that no one is in complete control of the target form of a very important area for the city. Instead of a neat and logical neighborhood, an urbanistic frankenstein sewn together from better and worse pieces may emerge.
