Plzeň-based developer BC Real has started construction of 1,500 flats in the more than ten-hectare site of a former paper mill near the Radbuza River. The project, called Nová Papírna, is the largest private housing development in the city since 1989. The developer has started building the first two houses with a total of 180 flats in the rear part near the park along Cyklistická Street, announced Patrik Novák, architect and co-owner of BC Real.
All seven phases, which cost seven to eight billion crowns according to current prices and should be completed within ten years, but it depends on the pace of demand. Novák said the project could help residents and businesses return to the centre of Pilsen. Between 3,000 and 3,500 people are expected to live in the area. The residential buildings will be complemented by shops, services, offices, a parking garage, a café, a large restaurant and a fitness centre.
BC Real has already built a multifunctional building Papírnická with 120 flats and offices near the brownfield of the former paper mill, which is the largest historical industrial area in Pilsen after the Škodovka site. “The flats there sold very quickly. It showed the potential of living by the river in the centre, which had not yet been discovered. In Prague, they understood it right from the revolution – Karlín, Smíchov, Holešovice, they built there right away. And today it is the most expensive place to live,” Novák said. Compared to the prices of flats in the first two houses of Nová Papírna, which are sold for CZK 85,000 per sqm, Karlín is almost twice as expensive, and the developer therefore also feels the great interest of Prague residents in this Pilsen location. “There are only 30 flats left. There is a lot of interest,” said broker Petr Linhart from Broker Consulting, a Plzeň-based firm that has been selling BC Real projects for a long time.
During the construction of the Papírnická apartment building, BC Real made contact with the owner of the KRPA group from Hostinné, which bought the site of the former paper mill established in 1871 and has been renting it for many years. The rear part of the site, the former football field up to Cyklistická Street, was bought by BC Real. The two groups eventually teamed up for the Nová Papírna project, with the local BC Real as its manager and guarantor.
The construction will be done in phases. The first is being built at the end of the site and will take two years. In the second phase, the investor will return to the current entrance of the paper mill, where it will build two apartment buildings with 134 apartments, for which it should have a building permit in the summer of 2023, and then start construction in the second half of the year. “Every year we want to prepare 100 to 150 flats for implementation,” Novák said. Two listed manufacturing and one warehouse hall will remain on the site. “They will be part of a major revitalisation that has been approved by the conservationists at the study stage. They will add amenities for the wider area and for residents,” Novák said. Subsequently, three more houses will be built towards the park and the last two buildings towards the river.
“Each block will have a unique facade. We want to do better design architecture,” Novák said. The PRO-STORY design office of architect Jiří Zábran, which is based in the paper mill, has been working for BC Real for a long time.
Novák is personally involved in the paper mill. His great-grandfather worked there as a labourer and in 1927 he suffered an accident and died there. “My grandfather was 15 years old at the time, and in satisfaction they offered him his father’s job. He had to support his mother and sister. He worked his way up to head of technology and worked at the paper mill for 45 years,” Novák said.
Source: BC Real and CTK
Photo: Byty Borský park – BC Real
