The City of Prague is signing a memorandum with Penta on plans for the reconstruction of the Masaryk train station and its surroundings. The new multifunctional zone, a project likely to cost up to CZK 10bn to construct, would create a new CBD complete with offices, retail, residential space as well as a substantial amount of new public space. Based on a design by the late Zaha Hadid, the project has been in the works for over a decade, but its current iteration has been forming over the past year as it made its way to gaining zoning permission. The initial permit was issued last month, but Prague’s current leadership says it had considered filing objections in order to continue negotiations before opting for the memorandum.
“We managed to improve the position of the city and secure from the developer further commitments that we would create attractive new public space and also improve the residential situation in Prague,” mayor Zdeněk Hříb told Seznam.cz. “Unfortunately, the city lost its most basic negotiation position back in September 2017 when the city assembly voted to increase the building coefficient. The city should have pressured the developer then. We had only limited possibilities at this point.” Penta co-owner Marek Dospiva told Seznam the current crisis wouldn’t change plans to build a large hotel at the Prague 1 site or at Penta’s project Waltrovka in Prague 5. “Absolutely not,” he said. “We have contracts with large, well-known international hotel operators. We don’t have the slightest doubt they will survive the crisis. Construction will take more than two years; the hotels could be on the market by roughly 2023. The situation will have stabilized by then,” he said.
