The City of Prague wants to negotiate down its rent at the Škoda Palace in Jungmannova street, though the 20-year contract was drawn up in 2006. “Current trends in market rent levels was the impulse to start negotiations,” said Prague mayor Bohuslav Svoboda. Under the terms of the contract, which has been bitterly criticized from the beginning, the city pays CZK 200m annually, but Svoboda believes the price could be ten to twenty percent lower. Škoda palace was on offer at CZK 1.2bn in 2006, but Svoboda’s predecessor Pavel Bém decided to lease the building instead for twenty years for a total of CZK 4.12bn. Svoboda complained the city did not even know to whom it paid the rent, as the original owner, Sebastian Pawlowsky, sold the building to Guyana Holding whose real owners are unknown, save for the fact that it’s registered in Luxemburg. This year a new landlord has appeared in the form of a Scottish investment fund, with which the City representation wants to start negotiate.
