(conservatoire) “Theater im Hof” of the “Festspiele Heppenheim GmbH” (organizer of the Heppenheimer Festspiele) Kreisvolkshochschule (district folk high school) Haus am Maiberg (political and social training centre of the Diocese of Mainz) Clubs in Heppenheim FC Starkenburgia 1900 e. V. Heppenheim, one of Germany's oldest football clubs, founded in the same year as the German Football Federation FC Sportfreunde Heppenheim e. V. REC Heppenheim e. V.; ice stock sport HC VfL Heppenheim; team handball WSV-BL; water sports BC Heppenheim (Badminton Club Heppenheim) Verkehrs- und Heimatverein e.V.; transport and local history SV Erbach; sport club Economy and infrastructure Heppenheim is part of the economically strong Rhine Neckar Area and together with various neighbouring towns and communities (among others Bensheim, Lorsch and Lautertal) is identified as a middle centre in the South Hesse Regional Plan. The town has in its favour good economic data – even in relation to the Rhine Neckar Area's and the Starkenburg Region's as a whole – above-average employment figures and an especially high proportion of graduates in the resident population's above-average buying power. Transport Heppenheim is linked by several buslines to Jugenheim, Grasellenbach and Mörlenbach. Heppenheim station is found in the town centre, and the two-track Main-Neckar Railway links the town to Heidelberg and Frankfurt am Main. Industry In 1899, one of Europe's first power stations was built in Heppenheim. Two steam engines furnished electricity beginning in 1900 for Heppenheim and Bensheim. After the Second World War, many industrial operations settled in town, from such fields as machine building (KLN Ultraschall AG), mining (Granitwerke Röhrig in the outlying centre of Sonderbach), textile and food production (among others, a great Langnese-Iglo GmbHproduction plant) and the analytical industry (WICOM). This array of businesses was also later filled out by further ones from the fields of logistics, marketing and services. On Bundesstraße 3, near the state boundary, the mineral spring business Odenwald-Quelle has been running since 1932. Winegrowing Heppenheim is a winegrowing town belonging to the Hessische Bergstraße wine region. With some 450 ha of vineyards it was originally Germany's smallest self-contained wine region (but since Reunification it has been the second smallest). Two hundred and thirty hectares alone – roughly half – can be found in Heppenheim and its two outlying centres of Hambach and Erbach. They are marketed under the banner name “Heppenheimer Schlossberg” with the individual designations Centgericht, Stemmler, Steinkopf, Schlossberg, Maiberg and Eckweg (until 2004 there