Prague has announced a tender for 1.95 billion CZK for the future headquarters of the space agency

Prague - The Prague City Hall has announced a public tender with an estimated value of 1.95 billion crowns excluding VAT for the completion of the unfinished building Nová Palmovka and its adaptation for the headquarters of the European Union Space Programme Agency (EUSPA). This information is based on data published in the public procurement notice. The European agency is expected to move into the building in 2027, while the city also plans to develop a residential district in the surrounding area.

The building in Palmovka was started by Prague 8 in 2014, intended to house the city hall complemented by a shopping center. However, a year later, work on the construction worth over a billion crowns was halted and has not yet been resumed. After prolonged negotiations, the building was taken over from Prague 8 by the city hall in 2021, which subsequently considered placing the emergency service headquarters there. Eventually, an agreement was reached with the state and EUSPA, which finds its current headquarters in Holešovice insufficient in terms of capacity.

The city has announced the contract using the so-called Design & Build method, meaning that the selected company will handle both the preparation of the project documentation and the construction. According to earlier statements from city hall representatives, the reason for this is quicker preparation, and the firm will be able to immediately start work on parts of the building that will remain unchanged from the original plans, while simultaneously working on the project of necessary adjustments for the needs of EUSPA.

EUSPA moved to Prague from Brussels on September 6, 2012, still under the name European Global Navigation Satellite System Agency. It includes, among others, the management of the operation of EU space programs, including existing satellite and navigation projects such as Galileo, EGNOS, or Copernicus. According to previous statements from agency representatives, the building on Janovského Street in Holešovice is already insufficient for 350 people. Due to the expansion of EUSPA's scope of activity, the number of its employees, external experts, and consultants working in the agency is gradually increasing from the original 230 to a planned 550 by 2027.