The attempt included making the greenhouse part of a communal group for housing care for elderly. During the council meeting in July a speaker convinced the council to explore this option. The aim was to allow the tropical greenhouse to function as energy source for a few houses and apartments in the adjacent old Herbarium.
This plan will not be realized. The Herbarium has received an environmental permit to allow students to live in it in the coming ten years. Project developer Van den Brink from Ermelo does not want to meddle with that plan. Moreover, keeping the greenhouse as energy source will lead to high prices for building the apartments. This does not make the plan for a communal group for housing care for elderly feasible.
This all means that the greenhouse will definitely be levelled and will be replaced by new housing of 20-25 apartments in three levels for starters, two-person households and for elderly. On request of the neighbourhood this building will not be for students. But the students will be able to live in the Herbarium. A start has been made building 41 student rooms in this long vacant building.
The tropical greenhouse was built in 1983 by design of W.R. de Vries and has the shape of a lectern. Since then the greenhouse housed a collection of tropical plants of the university. A few years ago the use of this greenhouse for education and research was ceased. Since then the diverse plans to try and preserve the greenhouse have all failed.