After three failed attempts to get its CZK 2.7bn investment approved by Brno officials, Amazon has given up on its bid to build a 100,000 sqm distribution center at the city’s Černovická terasa industrial zone. The Brno assembly was scheduled to vote on the matter again on April 15. However, Amazon’s head of European operations, Tim Collins, announced Wednesday that the US e-retailer will be taking its plans elsewhere. He did not say, though, whether the company will be looking at other locations within the Czech Republic.
The state investment agency CzechInvest, which mediated the Amazon negotiations in Brno and Dobrovíz, near the Prague airport, said that it has not discussed any other potential industrial zone locations with the online giant yet. But CzechInvest director Ondřej Vobruba told Hospodářské noviny that the agency will do its best to keep the investor in the Czech Republic.
Amazon and the developer, CTP, promised to pay the city of Brno CZK 300m to compensate for increased traffic and to help finance transport solutions. The Amazon investment would have created 1,500 jobs. ODS deputies, who voted against the investment, argued that CTP had been working on the project for a year without city approval, ignoring the master plan for the area and impact it would have on Brno residents.
