The planned cooperation between the Prague Transport Company (DPP) and the Karlín Group on the development of the Nádraží Holešovice metro station and its surroundings could also involve the CPI Group, which also owns plots in the area. Today’s information on the E15 ČTK server was confirmed by Daniel Šabík from the DPP communication department. The CPI has unsuccessfully challenged the plan in the past with the antitrust authority.
Most of the land in the vicinity of the station is owned by DPP, or the capital, part of the Karlín Group. According to the company’s management, this is the main reason for the plan of cooperation with the development group, which already owns part of the plots and which would ensure construction. The contract for the joint venture has not yet been signed.
According to Šabík, the transport company started negotiations with CPI Group with regard to the fact that the company bought a hectare of land near the station at the end of 2019. “CPI has become a major player not only in the Bubny-Zátory area, but has also bought a bus station, which is directly adjacent to the northern vestibule,” said DPP director Petr Witowski.
According to Witowski, development companies should have a majority in the company, and will thus bear costs in the order of hundreds of millions, for example, for the preparation and implementation of the planned development around the station. The company will invest mainly in land in the project, after the completion of construction it should have part of the revenues from, for example, renting shops and offices.
CPI Group previously challenged the joint venture’s plan with the Antimonopoly Office. He rejected the first complaint the year before last, and last year he wiped away the appeal. The company claimed that the land sale company should have launched a public tender. The company refused, saying that it did not want to sell the land, but in the form of a joint venture to participate in the development of the environment and in the future in the profits from the built real estate.
The DPP’s approach was previously criticized by the coalition United Forces for Prague (TOP 09 and STAN) and opposition parties in the Prague City Council. In this context, the company had two additional legal analyzes prepared, which, according to representatives of the company’s management, confirmed the correctness of the procedure. Witowski said in the past that a similar model of cooperation should be used in the future in the development of other metro stations, because the company’s management considers it the best way to enhance assets, which is common abroad.
Source: CTK
