Groundbreaking ceremony in Altenburg

On April 20, 2022, Panat­toni, the project devel­op­er for indus­tri­al and logis­tics facil­i­ties in Europe, togeth­er with Spielka­rten­fab­rik Altenburg GmbH, broke ground for the new, cus­tomized facil­i­ty in Altenburg, Thuringia. The Altenburg play­ing card fac­to­ry is the old­est well-known devel­op­er and man­u­fac­tur­er of play­ing cards in Europe and belongs to the inter­na­tion­al­ly active Bel­gian play­ing card man­u­fac­tur­er Car­ta­mun­di. In addi­tion to rep­re­sen­ta­tives of ASS Altenburger/Cartamundi, Panat­toni and gen­er­al con­trac­tor Gold­beck, the event was also attend­ed by Carsten Feller, State Sec­re­tary of the Thuringian Min­istry of Eco­nom­ics, Sci­ence and Dig­i­tal Soci­ety, the Thuringian State Devel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion, rep­re­sent­ed by Andreas Krey, and André Neu­mann, May­or of Altenburg.

The sus­tain­able facil­i­ty is being built on a brown­field site of approx. 77,500 m² and will have a total usable area of approx. 20,500 m² after com­ple­tion. Of this, 17,500 m² will be pro­duc­tion and stor­age space and around 2,700 m² will be office and social space. The exten­sive tech­ni­cal build­ing equip­ment will enable the East Thuringian card and game man­u­fac­tur­er of tra­di­tion­al play­ing cards to expand its diverse prod­uct range of fam­i­ly, edu­ca­tion­al and board games. The future build­ing will be used for pro­duc­tion, ware­hous­ing, logis­tics, admin­is­tra­tion and as a rep­re­sen­ta­tive loca­tion for cus­tomers and partners.

“The ‘build-to-suit’ solu­tion for our new site cre­ates the best con­di­tions for con­tin­u­ing the suc­cess sto­ry of Spielka­rten­fab­rik Altenburg. Not only does it enable us to work inno­v­a­tive­ly on improv­ing pro­duc­tion process­es and capa­bil­i­ties, but we also cre­ate an opti­mal and sus­tain­able envi­ron­ment for our employ­ees. This is a declared goal of the Car­ta­mun­di Group.”

- Jür­gen Gehr, Vice President

Carsten Feller, State Sec­re­tary in the Thuringian Min­istry of Eco­nom­ics, believes that the invest­ment will secure the com­pet­i­tive posi­tion and fur­ther growth of the play­ing card fac­to­ry at the tra­di­tion­al loca­tion of Altenburg for years to come. “The town of Altenburg is famous for the devel­op­ment of the card game Skat in the 19th cen­tu­ry. The region still draws eco­nom­ic strength and tourist appeal from these roots today. The new fac­to­ry will help main­tain and expand Altenburg’s posi­tion as a Ger­man card game cen­ter.” In addi­tion, the well-known card and games man­u­fac­tur­er fits in as an impor­tant anchor com­pa­ny in the over­all con­cept of the planned “Altenburg Games World,” which is also sup­port­ed by the state.

The com­pa­ny is aim­ing for gold cer­ti­fi­ca­tion from the DGNB (Ger­man Sus­tain­able Build­ing Coun­cil) for the con­struc­tion work by using resource-effi­cient and sus­tain­able meth­ods. To this end, the builder is imple­ment­ing a com­pre­hen­sive pack­age of cli­mate pro­tec­tion, species con­ser­va­tion, envi­ron­men­tal mea­sures and social sus­tain­abil­i­ty. In addi­tion to installing a cis­tern to col­lect water for flush­ing toi­lets and water­ing plants, elec­tric charg­ing sta­tions pro­vide a low-emis­sion mobil­i­ty solu­tion. In addi­tion, the roof struc­ture of the new build­ing is being pre­pared for the instal­la­tion of a solar sys­tem. The Group is design­ing the out­door areas of the facil­i­ty with boules and bar­be­cue areas as well­ness areas for employ­ees. In addi­tion, gen­er­ous areas for tree plant­i­ng, wild­flower mead­ows and a vari­ety of bee­hives and nest­ing box­es are planned to off­set the buildings.

“Panat­toni is devel­op­ing the site at the LEG loca­tion in Altenburg-North­east, which has excel­lent con­nec­tions to the city cen­ter, the B93 and B180 fed­er­al high­ways and Altenburg’s train sta­tion,” says Andreas Krey, man­ag­ing direc­tor of Lan­desen­twick­lungs­ge­sellschaft Thürin­gen mbH. “It is a con­ver­sion area for­mer­ly used for mil­i­tary pur­pos­es, which we have reclaimed for indus­tri­al use through exten­sive devel­op­ment measures.”