For Mayor Oliver Franz (CDU), this tour of the old courthouse on Moritzstrasse was a nostalgic trip into the past.

As a young judge, Franz passed through the archway under the blind Justitia countless times.

The courthouse, built in 1897, is now about to take on its new role as a place of residence, as a start-up center and as a source of inspiration for the creative and innovation scene and urban society.

Oliver Bock

Correspondent for the Rhein-Main-Zeitung for the Rheingau-Taunus district and for Wiesbaden.

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From the outside, the imposing building already shines in new splendour.

Inside, the craftsmen are still at work, but in a few months the new owner, Nassauische Heimstätte, wants to hand over around 2500 square meters on the ground floor and first floor to the "Heimathafen".

It already offers a combination of workplaces, conference and event rooms as well as a café and restaurant on Karlstrasse and is being expanded many times over.

Transformation to “futuristic encouragement building”

From the perspective of Heimathafen co-founder and managing director Dominik Hofmann, the interior of the venerable courthouse is undergoing a transformation from a historical "intimidating building" to a "futuristic encouraging building".

The character is definitely retained.

For example, through the magnificent stairwell, even if the fire protection along the stairway insisted on the installation of unsightly and unsuitable stainless steel handrails.

Or through the first floor jury room, the furniture of which must be preserved.

An event and conference room with a completely unusual charm will be created here.

The jury courtroom also shows that the building was once designed entirely for the needs of the Prussian judiciary.

Because next to the judge's bench, a small door leads to a barred stairwell and then down into the basement to the five holding cells where prisoners waited before they were led upstairs.

Hofmann can well imagine the cells as small studios for artists.

A neighboring room is to be converted into a well soundproofed bar.

Up to 140 people can celebrate here.

The ground floor above the catacombs is said to be open to the public.

An anteroom and a former courtroom are being converted into a café and restaurant with 75 outdoor seats on the court street.

However, outdoor seating will not be possible until 2024 at the earliest, when the state capital has implemented its plans to convert Court Street into a 150-meter-long pedestrian zone that is attractive to linger in (FAZ, July 14).

Business incubator and housing

Hofmann anticipates that several hundred guests and users will visit the new "Old Court" every day.

23 workplaces for founders will be set up in a former staff apartment of the court.

According to Hofmann, Nassauische Heimstätte has already started marketing the 48 apartments in the courthouse and annex.

The apartments, which are between 40 and 140 square meters in size, are to be rented at prices of twelve euros per square meter.

At the back of the courthouse, the preservation of historical monuments has allowed the addition of balconies that offer a view of the beautiful and spacious inner courtyard that the new users of the courthouse share with the Fresenius University of Applied Sciences.

Hofmann relies on interlocking with the universities in the region, which help to promote business start-ups.

He hopes that the Old Court will take on the role of a "cross-university start-up center".

This is in the spirit of Mayor Franz, who points out that Wiesbaden already supports the start-up scene in many ways: from rent subsidies to institutionalized funding for the Exina agency.

For its non-commercial offers in the courthouse, the home port receives a grant from the city of 1.2 million euros.

The first tranche had already been paid out, Franz said as he walked through his old place of work.

The only thing the former judge was not able to visit was his former office: it is in the living quarters and not accessible from the home port.

The city can still be satisfied, says Hofmann, because it has "ordered" a start-up center, but it is getting much more: a lighthouse with a magnet effect.

He has no doubts that it will be ready by the end of the year: "We are on schedule because it is already the fifth."