The Prague City Hall could move some of its officials into a building on the corner of Wenceslas Square and Štěpánská Street that belongs to Komerční banka (KB). The city will submit a proposal to the bank to buy the building. The intention was discussed by Prague councillors at an extraordinary meeting this morning. It was then proposed by councillor Zdeněk Kovářík (ODS) to be included on the agenda of today’s meeting. The building would be occupied by officials from the Škoda Palace, which is leased by the city until 2028.
Komerční banka is selling its building at Václavské náměstí 42, the bank’s communications director Tomáš Zavoral confirmed. He said the move is related to the bank’s long-term strategy to concentrate all operations at its headquarters in Prague’s Stodůlky district. “All tenders and their parameters represent internal information of the bank, for this reason we do not comment on them publicly,” he added.
The city had also considered buying the main post office building in Jindřišská Street, but ultimately did not reach an agreement with Česká pošta. In the past, there was also a plan to build a new building at Na Knížecí, but that has also fallen through so far. The city administration is based in the New Town Hall on Mariánské náměstí.
“We consider the Komerční banka building on Wenceslas Square as one of the options for the future seat of the Prague City Hall, so we have expressed interest and submitted a bid. This building is suitable for the needs of the office and could solve the situation with the Škoda Palace, where the capital is now renting,” said Vít Hofman, a spokesman for the municipality.
The document on making an offer to the bank has to be discussed by the city councillors, to whom it was proposed by Councillor Kovářík to be included in the agenda of the meeting. The municipality would submit the proposal to a company wholly owned by KB, Kovářík said. “This is a company on the Czech and foreign stock exchanges, where this way is the only way to bid for the opportunity to get the new headquarters of the capital’s office,” Kovářík said.
Prague officials are now based in several locations. A large part of them are in the Skoda Palace on Jungmannova Street. The municipality’s lease with the owner, investment company GLL, expires in 2028.
Prague’s administration under former mayor Pavel Bem (ODS) moved officials to Jungmannova Street. Prague has been dealing with the situation surrounding the lease for several years and unsuccessfully sued the original owner, Copa Retail, over the rent. The former management of the municipality, headed by Mayor Adriana Krnáčová (ANO), managed to agree on a modification of the lease agreement. The 20-year lease was supposed to cost the city CZK 4.4 billion, but in the end it will pay CZK 860 million less. In 2017, the palace was bought by GLL Real Estate Partners, an investment company based in Munich.
Source: CTK
Photo: wikipedia.org
