The recently demolished Váci Mihály College would be fifty years old
The Hajdú-Bihari Napló reported on April 9, 1972 that an eight-story student hostel was being built in the housing estate on Apafi Street in Debrecen. The construction was carried out by the Hajdú-Bihar County State Construction Company, and the plan was that the new facility would be ready for use by the beginning of the 1972/73 school year.
This happened anyway, since on September 1, 1972, it was already published in the paper that “perhaps the most significant in Hajdú-Bihar is the new building wing of the Árpád Tóth High School in Debrecen, built at a cost of around HUF six million, as well as the 370-person high school dormitory to be handed over in Apafi Street. In Komádi, the new dormitory, which is also entering now, serves the purposes of regionalization.”
At the height of socialist coexistence
At that time, the first day of school was September 2 in all institutions. The institution on Apafi Street did not yet bear the name of the poet, who died young (at the age of 45), when it was handed over. According to Napló’s contemporary account, he took the name of Mihály Váci on April 30, 1976 from the secondary school facility in Apafi Street. The naming and college opening ceremony began with the sounds of the National Anthem, and those present were greeted by Principal Ferencs Dancs. The event was attended by Tibor Oláh, department head of the Debrecen City Party Committee, Béláné Deczky, head of the Debrecen City Committee of the Teachers’ Union, and Tibor Takó, the main speaker of the Ministry of Education.
In his festive speech, Dr. Károly Tar, deputy head of the Cultural Affairs Department of the Debrecen City Council, praised the institution’s work. As he said, “the student community – under the guidance of their educators – has reached such a level of socialist coexistence that the supervisory authority classifies the institution that has been operating as a student dormitory until now as a dormitory. The collective achieved a significant result in career management and preparation for life’s vocation. In the life of the institute, a harmonious relationship developed between the teachers and the student government, and as a result of all this, self-active student communities were formed.”
The dormitory flag was handed over by György Pántya, an employee of the KISZ county committee, on behalf of the KISZ Central Committee. after that, the representatives of the secondary school colleges in Debrecen tied a ribbon on the flag of the Váci Mihály College.
Announced thirteen years ago
The years flew by, we were already well past the regime change, when in July 2009 it was revealed that the city would sell three dormitories (for a total of one billion forints) on the grounds that the maintenance was uneconomical and that the utilization barely exceeded 70 percent in the previous year. Of these, the sales process of the Váci college was not easy. In the meantime, at the October 2016 city council assembly, mayor László Papp said: “One of our most important goals is to increase the number of people attending Debrecen secondary school to 20-30 in the coming years. For this, institutions must be developed and expanded. So, for example, we want to renovate the Váci Mihály College in Apafi Street next year, turning it into a modern, normal college.”
Finally, in September 2021, the Váci college was sold again in the public tender. The real estate complex was purchased by the bidder Héliker Ingatlan Kft. for a net value of HUF 612 million. Haon learned from Zoltán Kotosmann, the company’s managing director, that there are plans to build a condominium complex on the site of the former Váci college, which includes premium quality apartments and offers. At the time of our conversation, we wrote the beginning of July, and the demolition had just begun.