Another shopping center will not be built in the center of Liberec

Liberec - Another shopping center that the German company ECE wanted to build in Liberec at Perštýn will not be constructed. The Liberec councilors rejected the change to the zoning plan at their last meeting of the year, which considers residential construction in this area. This was reported today by Martin Korych, spokesman for the Liberec magistrate. However, residents of Liberec will not lose the opportunity for shopping in the center; Dutch investors are preparing two large shopping complexes in the vicinity of the location.
    The plan to build a shopping gallery at Perštýn was introduced by the German investor this spring, intending to start construction in the fall of next year. The project, costing around three billion crowns, was to offer approximately 30,000 square meters of retail space in two to three floors, plus two additional floors for parking. However, transportation experts warned from the beginning about the construction, fearing that the already dense traffic in this area would become even more congested. An estimated 25,000 vehicles pass daily through the nearby roundabout, and the shopping center would bring hundreds more cars to the area.
    Councilors also criticized that the city would allow the last large undeveloped area in the center to be occupied. "It is one of the few last places where housing can grow in the center of the city," argued Jiří Šolc from SOS for Liberec. According to Deputy Mayor Ivo Palouš, however, the slope faces north and is not very attractive for residential use. Nevertheless, there was a plan in the 1990s to build a neighborhood with apartments and row houses there, but the project failed.
    Investors have long overlooked the hundred-thousand-inhabitant Liberec; compared to other similarly-sized cities, it has significantly less retail space per capita. However, this is expected to change in the near future. ING Real Estate has begun expanding the largest shopping center Nisa, construction has started on the Plaza shopping gallery, and Globus is being built in the new commercial and industrial zone on the outskirts of the city. A shopping center called Promenáda is planned to be built in the city center on the land where Textilana stood just a few years ago, and the so-called lower center around the Tesco department store is also set to undergo redevelopment.