Praha 3 will announce an architectural competition for apartment buildings near the freight train station

Prague - Prague 3 plans to hold an architectural competition for a group of buildings that it wants to construct on land near the Žižkov Freight Station. The city district council recently approved that the municipality would submit a grant application to the Ministry of Regional Development (MMR) for funding from the National Recovery Fund to secure the competition and project documentation for the buildings.

The buildings are expected to be constructed in the southern part of the construction block defined by the streets Na Viktorce and u Staré cihelny. The city district estimates the costs for the competition and subsequent project creation at 12.1 million crowns, of which it aims to obtain ten million from the grant. The city district had previously approved the preparation of the competition but later suspended it due to the inability to secure funding for the construction.

According to the current decision, the buildings are expected to be built gradually. "Dividing the implementation of the investment plan into several phases - individual apartment buildings - seems realistic in terms of securing funding, allowing for the search for funding options from grant programs for each phase," states the document. According to the conditions of the grant, if obtained, the municipality would have to complete the project by June 2026 and subsequently construct the buildings within ten years.

In recent years, Prague has been grappling with a housing crisis due to high housing prices. There are approximately 30,000 apartments owned by the municipality, including those under the management of city districts, down from an original number of 194,000 that passed into city ownership after 1991. This was followed by privatizations that reduced the municipal stock by more than 80 percent. The city leadership, along with city districts, aims to increase the number of municipal apartments again to ensure affordable housing, for instance, for representatives of professions essential to the functioning of the city.