On Friday, August 23, Transport Minister Anke Rehlinger, together with Werner Nauerz, Head of the state road construction company LfS, and Thomas Schuck, Managing Director of LEG Service GmbH, opened the new compact road maintenance depot in Merzig. Rehlinger was pleased that the new building created optimal working conditions for the employees. `Every day in wind and weather our colleagues ensure that we have efficient and safe roads in Saarland. The new maintenance depot offers the best conditions so that they can perform their tasks in the best possible way`, she said.
In order to avoid disturbances in the road operating procedures, the Ministry of Transport and LfS decided to build a compact maintenance depot which, in this form, is new in Saarland. The depot is located on the commercial area Bruchwies in the district of Merzig-Besseringen.
The days when you had to drive to different locations to load, repair or clean the vehicles are over. Managing the project, SHS subsidiary LEG Service has created a new concept for the road maintenance depots in Saarland -the one-site solution in Merzig which unites everything under one roof: salt depot, vehicle hall with workshop, washing hall, signage hall, technology and administration.
After a construction period of about one year, the new maintenance depot was handed over to the LfS in July 2019. The new building has a usable area of around 3,800 square meters. The vehicle hall is equipped with workshop and car wash. On the salt depot, up to 1,000 tons of salt can be stored.
Transport Minister Rehlinger added: `The new building in Merzig is state-of-the-art in terms of technology and functionality. The money is well spent and another milestone in the decade of investments`.
For Thomas Schuck, Managing Director of LEG, `this once more shows that Strukturholding Saar as a state-owned company is a solid and competent partner when it comes to the rapid, functional and cost-conscious development of complex construction projects. We are pleased that our company, in this case LEG Service, can make a significant contribution to the further development of the transport infrastructure in Saarland`.
`The new building of the Merzig road maintenance in Besseringen provides everything efficient and modern road maintenance services must have – a central location within the district, a good road linkage and, last but not least, the all-in-one concept that combines the administration building, team facilities and community rooms as well as halls for vehicles, equipment, workshop and salt under one roof, thus providing short ways and best working conditions for the colleagues`.
The new building was erected on a site belonging to the Merzig harbour area. The Landesbetrieb für Straßenbau, LfS, which is responsible for road maintenance, has acquired the nearly 15,000 square meter plot of land owned by Flug-Hafen-Saarland GmbH whose management services are provided by the SHS Group. General contractor of the construction project was OBG Hochbau.
As part of the reform of the federal highway administration, federal motorways will no longer be managed by the German states, but by federal administration from 2021. The federal government will assume sole responsibility for the planning, construction, operation, maintenance, management and financing of the federal motorways. From the year 2021, the LfS will therefore only serve national and regional roads. Then, today´s road and motorway maintenance Merzig becomes a pure road maintenance depot.
