Ground-breaking ceremony for DPD in Holzgünz | Green Depot

From left, Steffen Müller, Managing Director of Alois Müller Holding GmbH &Co. KG, Andreas Brockhaus, Managing Director of LIST Bau, Thomas Ohnhaus, Chief Operating Officer (COO) of DPD Deutschland, Andreas Müller, Managing Director of Alois Müller Holding GmbH & Co. KG, Christa Bail, Deputy Chair of A96 trade and industry association and Dr. Stephan Winter, Deputy District Administrator of Unterallgäu.

With a symbolic ground-breaking ceremony, DPD and Alois Müller Holding GmbH & Co. KG celebrated the start of construction work on a green depot in Holzgünz near Memmingen in the Unterallgäu region. The parcel sorting centre is expected to start operations in February 2021. When it comes on stream, it will replace the existing depot in Kempten and will also take over the depot’s delivery area. Energy efficiency and sustainability are playing a key role in the construction project.

The new building will enable DPD to strengthen its presence in a region that offers great potential for business customers thanks to a high density of economically strong companies. In addition, the region’s above-average per capita income is generating a strong increase in e-commerce parcels and,since an expansion of the site is not possible, DPD’s existing location in Kempten will no longer be able to meet the requirements of these growth markets over the long term. “I am delighted that the local department of commerce has been able to provide DPD with a site which, thanks to its favourable location, meets the requirements of the parcel service as well as those of the surrounding municipalities,” says Christa Bail, Deputy Chair of the A96 trade and industry association. The new Holzgünz depot will be able to handle up to 50,000 parcels a day. Around 130 people will eventually be employed at the Holzgünz depot. As this is a depot relocation, many employees of the depot in Kempten will also move to the new facility. However, a large part of the workforce at the new location will be newly recruited. “This means that the new depot will do more than just supply parcels to local people.It will also provide new jobs for our Unterallgäu region,” says Deputy District Administrator Dr. Stephan Winter.

Thomas Ohnhaus, Chief Operating Officer (COO) of DPD Germany, adds,”Investments such as this one here in Holzgünz are important if we are to maintain our market position. We need modern, high-performance parcel sorting centres in order to cope with the rapid growth in parcel volumes. Located not far from both the Swiss and Austrian borders, Holzgünz is an excellent location for a new DPD depot in strategic terms.”

Unlike most construction projects in recent years, DPD will not be the developer in Holzgünz. This role will be taken by Alois Müller Holding GmbH & Co. KG, which will subsequently also act as the landlord of the depot. As a company with extensive expertise in the field of energy and building technology, Alois Müller will focus on resource-saving and energy-efficient solutions while making sure that user convenience is not compromised. “For many years our company has stood for future-oriented thinking, the use of renewable energies and, above all, sustainable operations. This ecological new building project for the DPD depot serves as yet another example of this,” states Managing Director Andreas Müller.

The new DPD depot will be nearly self-sufficient in terms of energy. With the help of a photovoltaic system measuring around 3,000 square metres and with a total output of 500 kW, the sorting halls and office building will be able to produce their own electricity and, thanks to intelligent energy storage systems, use it as needed.In addition, the buildings are heated and cooled by resource-saving concrete core activation. Heating and cooling are provided from the nearby energy plant, where regenerative heating is obtained from biomass and CO₂-neutral cooling from a well system. Energy costs and CO₂ emissions are thus reduced to almost zero. The flexible and expandable local heating network not only ensures a resource-conserving and sustainable supply of heat to the new DPD depot, but will also allow other companies that choose the A96 industrial and commercial park as their location to be connected at any time.

LIST Bau Nordhorn, a long-standing partner to DPD, has been commissioned with the operational implementation of the construction project. On the site in Holzgünz, an unloading hall and two loading halls as well as an office building with a total usable area of almost 10,000 m² will be built. Andreas Brockhaus, Managing Director of LIST Bau Nordhorn, provides insight into the course of the construction work: “In December, we will start with the special foundations, in which we will fix vibrating tamping columns in the groundin order to stabilise the future structure. The new building will then go up starting at the beginning of next year. We will probably be able to celebrate completion in September 2020.”

The project in Holzgünz is also notable because of the fact that the developer – Alois Müller Holding GmbH &Co. KG – has created an outstandingly sustainable concept for the building’s electricity, heating and cooling systems.”We are working very closely with the developer, who is installing all the building’s utility services on its own in order to optimally implement its plans,” explains Brockhaus. In addition, the general contractor is supporting the environmentally friendly aspect of the construction project by using sustainable materials.”We are using wood as the building material for the roof structure of DPD’s depots and logistics facilities,” explains Brockhaus. “Among other factors, wood has a much better CO₂ footprint than the alternative materials. Each cubic metre of glued laminated timber binds about one tonne of CO₂. In addition, wood creates a warm building atmosphere and has a positive influence on the indoor climate due to its moisture-balancing properties.”