The Prague City Council wants to seek a direct purchase of the Žižkov Freight Station building instead of the joint venture with Czech Railways and Sekyra Group. Councillor Adam Zábranský (Pirates) and Deputy Mayor Petr Hlaváček (STAN) told journalists after today’s meeting of the city council. The city wants to build a cultural and social centre and a school in the functionalist building. Several developers plan to build a new district for up to 15,000 inhabitants on the unused area around the station.
The large building is owned by České dráhy, which in the past formed a joint venture with the Sekyra Group to develop the Žižkov Station Development, which has the right of first refusal on the station building. The city has been negotiating the future of the station for a long time, and in recent years, according to representatives of Prague’s previous leadership, it has focused on the possibility of establishing a joint venture with the shares of the current owners and the municipality.
According to Zábranský, the councillors have now reconsidered this and the city will now focus on negotiations on a direct purchase. “It turned out that this would be a very complicated path, so we finally agreed that the best way would be to acquire the building from the ownership of the capital and deal with possible cooperation with the private sector later. Legally, it would certainly be much simpler and I hope this route works out,” he said today.
According to Hlaváček, the city’s leadership also declared that it remains committed to transforming the building into a social, cultural and educational centre. According to earlier statements, the functionalist station could house the National Film Archive, cultural and social spaces or an elementary school.
Originally the station was to give way to construction, but after pressure from activists the demolition was abandoned and since 2013 the building has been a cultural monument. According to an urban planning study approved last year, up to 15,000 inhabitants are to live in the new district on the site of the Žižkov Freight Station, parks and several schools and kindergartens are to be built there in the future. A tram line will be built on the northern edge of the area along Malešická Street and a new Jarovská Street will connect the district to the future section of the city ring road.
Central Group has already started building flats in the area, and Finep, Penta Real Estate and Sekyra Group are also planning to build there. The municipality and Prague 3 are negotiating with the developers about contributions to the construction of the infrastructure; in total, the companies should provide the municipalities with so-called contributions worth CZK 1.5 billion, according to city representatives.
Source: CTK
Photo: wikipedia.org
