The work on the Dragant took one year to complete. Alderman Roeland van der Schaaf officially opened the renewed fifty-year-old flat in Selwerd on Monday afternoon.
Renovations
The renovated building should last another half a century. The 314 rooms werd modernized and expanded from eleven to eighteen square meters. The rooms now also include private toilets and showers, instead of the previously shared facilities.
Kitchens remain shared, but the number of residents sharing has been reduced from 15 to half that. Furthermore, the materials of the facades have been substituted with steel frames, that are resistant to earthquakes.
First residents
The Dragant will welcome its first residents in June. Some of them will relocate from the Esdoornflat, which is most likely also up for the same kind of renovation as the Dragant. Housing corporation Lefier hopes the renovation of the Esdoornflat will start next year.
If all goes well, the third student flat in Selwerd, the Kornoeljeflat, should undergo a similar treatment in the years to come. Whether this will be the case, however, depends on talks between Lefier and the Student Housing Foundation, the current landlord of the third building.