The Prague City Council will issue a public tender for the completion of the unfinished Nová Palmovka building in Prague 8, where the headquarters of the European Union Space Programme Agency (EUSPA) is to be moved from Holešovice. The estimated cost is CZK 1.9 billion excluding VAT and the city will finance it. According to councillor Adam Zábranský (Pirates), the construction work is to last until 2026, with the agency moving in 2027. The Prague Development Company (PDS) is in charge of the preparation and has started the so-called preliminary market consultations.
According to the approved document, Prague will award the contract using the so-called Design & Build method, which means that the selected company will take care of both the design documentation and the actual construction. The building will then be leased from the city by the Ministry of Finance, which will provide the premises to the agency. The institution has had its headquarters in the Czech Republic for 11 years and is now based in a building in Janovského Street in Holešovice, which is no longer sufficient for its capacity.
“According to the contracts, EUSPA is supposed to move to the new building in 2027, so we have to finish it in 2026 at the latest,” Zábranský said.
Construction of the Nová Palmovka complex began nine years ago. The building was to house the new headquarters of Prague 8 City Hall and a business centre or offices. A year later, however, work on the centre costing more than CZK 1 billion was interrupted and has not yet been resumed. The building was taken over from Prague 8 by the municipality, which originally planned to put a new headquarters for the rescue services there, but eventually abandoned it. The city is also planning to build a residential area on Palmovka.
EUSPA brings together, among other things, the operational management of EU space programmes, including existing satellite and navigation projects such as Galileo, EGNOS and Copernicus.
Source: CTK
Photo: PDS
