The former Prior in Pardubice will be renovated this autumn after three years

Pardubice – The former Prior department store in Pardubice will open to the public this fall after three years of renovations. The work was supposed to take a year, but due to poor technical conditions, it has been extended by another two, the investment company announced in a press release. The building from 1974 was the first department store in eastern Bohemia. The structure, with its distinctive red frame and windows shaped like honeycomb cells, has been undergoing modernization since the fall of 2019.

"Although the work has extended beyond the original plan due to the building's technical condition and the construction complications associated with it, everything is now running according to plan," said PR consultant Adéla Kubaštová.

The necessary demolition finished last June, and since then the company has been modernizing the exteriors and interiors. The red appearance of the building will be preserved. At the end of the year, workers completed the highest point of the building, the so-called glajcha. They removed the tower crane from the construction site, which is no longer needed. The company executed concrete work on the individual floors of the building and completed the installation of the steel ceiling structure.

The investor of the renovation is Atrium Palác Pardubice. The former Prior will once again host a Tesco market as well as other retail stores. Since 2009, it has been connected to the shopping center Atrium, previously Afi. "As part of the reconstruction, the Tesco retailers will connect with the neighboring shopping center Palác Pardubice through the garages, on the ground floor, and on the second level," said Kubaštová.

The original Prior project on the site of the former barracks was designed by architect Anděla Drašarová. Her design was ultimately revised by Brno architect Růžena Žertová, who specialized in the construction of department stores.

The department store cost 60 million crowns, and its planned turnover was 280 million crowns. The foundation stone was laid in June 1971, and the completed building was finished in the fall of 1974. In 1992, Prior was purchased by the American company K-Mart and in 1996 by Tesco. It currently belongs to Atrium Palác Pardubice.