With the new children’s and youth centre at Nopitschstraße 23, an important building block for social infrastructure has been created in the Schweinau district. The building combines a neighbourhood-focused children’s and youth centre with a central base for the mobile play units “Mobbl” and “Ratz”. WBG KOMMUNAL GmbH delivered the project on behalf of the City of Nuremberg. The topping-out ceremony with Lord Mayor Marcus König, Councillor for Youth, Family and Social Affairs Elisabeth Ries, Head of Planning and Building Daniel F. Ulrich, and Ralf Schekira, Managing Director of WBG KOMMUNAL GmbH, took place today, Thursday, March 5, 2026.
“Children and young people need places where they feel welcome, can try things out and receive support,” emphasises Lord Mayor Marcus König. “With the new children’s and youth centre in Schweinau, we are creating exactly such a space – firmly rooted in the neighbourhood and at the same time open to a wide range of services across the entire city.” The four-storey new building, with a gross floor area of around 1,574 square metres, provides the right spatial conditions for this. Around 45% of the space is allocated to the children’s and youth centre. The remaining rooms are used as storage, administration and preparation areas for the two mobile play units, which regularly operate in the city’s districts.
Elisabeth Ries, Councillor for Youth, Family and Social Affairs, underlines the importance of the project for children’s and youth work: “By combining a permanent facility with mobile play and leisure services, we reach young people where they live. The new centre strengthens open children’s and youth work in the long term and creates reliable structures for educational work. It is another important milestone in our youth policy objective of creating needs-based open children’s and youth work services step by step in all parts of the city. It is high time that we finally have a fully equipped children’s and youth centre in Schweinau and can support young people properly. I look forward to bringing the centre to life on site together with the young people themselves and the professionals – in other words, with the actual users of this construction project.”
The building was deliberately designed as an elongated structure along Nopitschstraße. It acts as a noise barrier for the outdoor areas facing north and creates sheltered spaces for play, meeting and spending time. Due to unfavourable ground conditions and in order to protect the existing trees, a basement was omitted. The new building was constructed as a solid structure with a flat roof and a photovoltaic system. “The conditions at this site were challenging. All the more, this project shows how smart planning, robust architecture and good cooperation can create a functional place for children and young people that is also compatible with the urban context,” explains Daniel F. Ulrich, Head of Planning and Building.
Following completion of the structural works and the outdoor facilities, total costs now amount to around €8.9 million. The project is supported with around €2.6 million from the federal-state urban development funding programme “Social Cohesion – Shaping Life Together in the Neighbourhood”. In addition, it is funded under the federal programme for energy-efficient buildings, in this case through a reduced-interest loan from KfW (Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau) of around €4.4 million.
