The Olomouc City Hall is seriously interested in the large post office building in Ladova Street in Olomouc-Hejčín, which Česká pošta (ČP) plans to sell in an electronic auction. The municipality will send a letter to the management of ČP asking for information on the further procedure and conditions for the possible involvement of the city in the sale of this property. The deputy mayor Otakar Štěpán Bačák (spOLečně) told the Czech Press Agency today. The starting price of the complex with land occupying an area of nearly 13,000 square metres is CZK 119 million. Its amount was determined according to an expert opinion. A post office and a depot now operate on the site. ČP intends to conclude a lease agreement with the new owner for part of the premises, which will continue to be used for postal services.
Representatives of the town hall coalition agreed to approach ČP about the terms of a possible sale of the Ladova Street branch to the town. Martina Ivanova, director of the state postal service division of the ČP, told the council in late January that the post office is considering selling the former Horní náměstí branch and the Ladova Street premises in one package or separately, with a preference for an electronic auction. City Hall had also previously been interested in the possibility of acquiring the Horní náměstí post office building. However, according to Bačák, ČP does not intend to have a branch there even under the Post Partner regime, so this property in the centre of Olomouc is no longer so interesting for the city.
According to Bačák, it will not be necessary for the town hall to bid directly in the electronic auction for the sale of the premises in Ladova Street. The property can be sold to the city if it subsequently matches the highest bid made in the auction. “Anyone who puts up the (auction) security will go ahead with this risk,” Bačák pointed out. According to him, it is still necessary to explain, for example, the procedure of ČP in case no bidder for the property makes even the first submission. In this situation, if the city had participated in the auction and paid the deposit, it could have made the first submission and acquired the property in this way. “We still have to work these things out technically,” he said.
If the city council buys the sprawling Ladova Street site, it will be able to relocate some departments that are now housed in several other buildings there. “There are huge halls there (in Ladova Street) where mobile buildings or partitions can be installed,” Bačák said. The complex also has partially underground spaces where the city could move, for example, the archives from the school building on Sokolská Street. Bačák said that the advantage of the Ladova Street site is also good transport accessibility and a large parking lot, which is lacking at the building on Horní náměstí.
Thanks to the purchase of the Ladova Street site, the city could relocate the municipality’s department focused on traffic and administrative issues, which is temporarily housed in a state-owned building on Vejdovského Street. According to Bačák, it could be moved to the Namiro building and from there other departments to Ladova Street. “It would be such a ball lightning action,” Bačák pointed out. The town hall wants to buy the administrative part of the Namiro building, where the municipality has rented space for about a third of its officials since 2013, for CZK 398 million.
Source: CTK
