Eindhoven municipality has established the right of first refusal on the building of health insurer VGZ, on Kennedyplein near the railway station. The owner of the property wants to sell it and started a public bidding process to do so but the municipality has put a stop to it.
The municipality has grand plans for the area north of the station. Thousands of affordable homes are to be built there. The Municipality will expand the station and bus station for better accessibility to the region.
To make all this financially feasible, Eindhoven wants to prevent the prices of land and property on Fellenoord from going artificially high as real estate companies bid against each other. The municipality therefore has the option of establishing the right of first refusal so that land or property owners must first offer a property to the municipality when selling it.
Thwarted bid
So that is what the municipality did about the VGZ building. It did so even though the owner had already offered the property in a public bid. That did not go ahead because the municipality ‘thwarted’ that bid, so to speak.
Earlier, the municipality had already purchased office property Fellenoord 200-240 for around €10 million. Eindhoven is also said to be considering buying three other properties in the area. It is not yet clear if and when Eindhoven will purchase the VGZ building. Now that the right of first refusal has been established, the municipality has up to three years to take action.
Source: Studio040
For Eindhoven news: Chaitali Sengupta
