Contipark takes over car park with a history in Pforzheim

For some, the “Central-Parkhaus” car park at Zerrennerstraße 20 is simply an ideally located car park, for others it is a facility with a long history. On 1 March, Contipark bought the car park from owner Hans-Georg Schober.

The multi-storey car park – a good idea from the land of unlimited possibilities

Cars, parking and Schober have long belonged together in Pforzheim. At least since grandfather Erich Schober imported a good idea into the German Reich: the multi-storey car park. A good 100 years ago, however, the idea could not be realised immediately. On the family-owned site of the former “Pforzheimer Brauhaus” (Brewery), Schober Senior initially built a petrol station with an attached workshop and provided a few parking spaces. Before the Second World War, the first innovative “parking boxes” were finally added. Back then, good ideas needed time to flourish.

Car park economic miracle after the Second World War

An air raid by the British Royal Air Force (RAF) on Pforzheim on 23 February 1945 claimed almost 18,000 lives in the gold town. In just 22 minutes, over a fifth of the city’s inhabitants lost their lives – more than in any other German city in percentage terms. Large parts of the city were destroyed, rebuilding the ruins was out of the question and urgently needed living space had to be created through new construction. After Heinz Schober returned home from being an Allied prisoner of war, he joined his father’s company.

At the beginning of the 1950s, one of the first multi-storey car parks in Pforzheim was to be built. But first – according to the city’s requirements – a residential building had to be erected on the Schober family’s property. A block of flats for 11 parties was built. The Schober family’s workshop and a “multi-colour petrol station” were also in operation again on the company premises – the classic. Fuel from various suppliers was sold here.

In 1955, the first construction phase of the multi-storey car park was planned, providing parking spaces for 80 vehicles. In 1957, the car park finally opened in Zerrennerstraße. Soon after, in 1959, another 250 parking spaces were made available in the second construction phase. In the car-crazy times of the economic miracle, this brought significant relief to the parking situation in Pforzheim city centre. In the third construction phase in 1967, the number of parking spaces was increased to a total of 390 on six levels. “Today there are ‘only’ 367, we had to adapt the parking spaces over time to the ever wider modern cars,” says former owner Hans-Georg Schober. He has now sold the “Central-Parkhaus Schober” to Contipark in order to devote himself to the many ideas that are still in his head. Incidentally, his father Heinz Schober was one of the founders of the Bundesverband Parken e.V., whose chairman today is Contipark Managing Director Michael Kesseler.

Clear corporate strategy – ownership and favourable rates are closely interlinked at Contipark

“Acquiring ownership is part of our corporate strategy, because we are committed to the long term. This is the only way we can offer our customers a stable price structure and continuous service in the long term,” says Michael Kesseler, Managing Director of Contipark. For example, the low-cost P Card is to be introduced at Zerrennerstraße 20. With Contipark’s own payment and access card, the company already frequently ensures a daily price of less than 5 euros at other locations. “We always plan with attractive daily or, in many cases, favourable weekly and monthly rates for our P-Card customers. And these customer-friendly rates can only really be guaranteed in your own property,” says Andreas Knops, Member of the Management Board and Head of Property Management.