Hradec Králové will revise the documentation for the reconstruction of the Great Square

Hradec Králové - The Hradec Králové City Hall will revise the documentation for the reconstruction of the Great Square in the city center, a project that has been in preparation for 16 years. The request for the issuance of a zoning decision, which is being reviewed by the city office in Hořice, will be withdrawn by the city. Subsequently, it should be resubmitted after the documentation is revised. This was stated today by Lukáš Řádek (TOP 09), the Deputy Mayor for Investments. The historic Great Square currently mainly serves as a parking lot for about 250 cars. The center is asphalted, and the paving stones around its perimeter are in poor condition.

The city hall has been preparing a complete renovation of the square, estimated to cost a quarter of a billion crowns, since 2007. However, due to objections from some residents, who mainly object to the planned reduction of parking spaces in the square, construction has not yet started. Previous various efforts by the city to unblock the situation have not been successful.

According to Řádek, the revised documentation should be created based on the original concept of modifications and should serve as an evolution of the project. The advantage of the solution will also be that the documentation will be processed as a single-stage process, and the city will not be limited to only the original documentation creator when selecting its developer. The new documentation should also contain elements of infrastructure that provide a more pleasant stay in the square during the summer.

Other possible solutions for the square's reconstruction, which the city leadership rejected, included continuing with the current project to obtain a zoning decision or starting everything from scratch, including an architectural competition.

The original reconstruction proposal for the square was prepared by the ARN studio of architect Jiří Krejčík. Since August 2016, the issuance of the zoning decision has been reviewed by the building office in Hořice, where the zoning process was moved due to suspicions of bias on the part of the city leadership and the Hradec office.

The Hradec Králové City Hall also received European funding for the construction, but in 2012, the city returned the money due to concerns that it would not meet the deadline set by the grant. In 2018, the city temporarily repaired the damaged surface of the square.

For most political entities in Hradec, the reconstruction of the damaged square is a traditional election issue. For the current city hall coalition, which is made up of five entities, the preparation for the reconstruction of the Great Square is one of the main priorities.