The campus of the Ústí University has already cost 850 million in 10 years

Ústí nad Labem - The campus of Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem (UJEP) has cost approximately 850 million crowns over the past 10 years. A new building for the Faculty of Education, the Faculty of Art and Design, a scientific library, and a new multifunctional center have been created. The building for the Faculty of Social and Economic Studies has been renovated along with other components of the university. Two more buildings are being repaired, while the last planned construction is delayed due to the demolition of a building, which some locals are fighting to have declared a monument.
"Including the demolitions of old buildings, the completed constructions have come to around 850 million crowns. We have promised funds for projects worth another approximately 740 million crowns," said Jiří Uhman, UJEP's vice-chancellor, to ČTK after the presentation of the ten-year development of the university campus. Total costs are currently about a billion lower than previous estimates for the construction of the school complex on 90,000 square meters on the site of the former city hospital. In the early stages, the amount discussed was 2.6 billion.
There is still the reconstruction of two former hospital pavilions for 186.4 million crowns to be completed. Including furnishings, the new buildings for research and teaching spaces of the Faculty of Arts at UJEP are expected to cost approximately 260 million. The school has also promised funds for the demolition of the existing building of the former outpatient clinic and the construction of a Center for Natural Science and Technical Fields on its site, which is expected to cost 590 million crowns. Laboratories will primarily be created there for the Faculty of Natural Sciences and the Faculty of Production Technologies and Management.
However, some locals, including architects and the Ústí branch of the National Heritage Institute, have opposed the demolition. They submitted a proposal to the Ministry of Culture to declare the building designed by Ústí architects F. J. Arnold and E. Krob, completed in 1937, as a cultural monument. However, the proposal was rejected in September. During the dispute, the university promised opponents of the demolition of the former outpatient clinic that it would at least announce an architectural competition for the new design of the building. "The Chamber of Architects did not recommend this to us," said UJEP Vice-Rector for Development Vladimír Švec to those gathered today.
According to the university's rector René Wokoun, the construction of the campus will be completed for now. "If we finish the Center, further considerations regarding investments will probably end for many years. The state budget is not expandable; only a new programming period of the European Structural Funds could give us some hope," Wokoun said, adding that the school would like to vacate the building at Hoření Street number 13, where the rectorate and part of the Faculty of Education UJEP have been located.
The university originally operated in 16 buildings in Ústí nad Labem and had two dislocated workplaces in Litvínov and Chomutov. The university began discussions with the city about the establishment of the campus in 2002, and a private investor was originally to participate in its financing, which the Ministry of Education would gradually repay for the construction and operation. In 2007, the entire project was suspended and later began to be realized from state funds.
Further development of the university campus will be determined by the new programming periods of the government and the European Structural Funds, according to Vice-Rector Švec. The school sees potential for development in the western corner of the area along Mendělejev Street and in two areas on the eastern side of the campus. "Last week we sent an investment plan to the government for the period up to 2020 with an amount of 2.5 billion crowns. If at least a quarter of that comes through, it would be significant for us," concluded the vice-rector.
In the area of the building campus, the Faculty of Social and Economic Studies, the Faculty of Production Technologies and Management, the Faculty of Applied Arts and Design, part of the Faculty of Natural Sciences, the Central Library of the Faculty of Education, the central library, and the multifunctional center, which will also house the rectorate, are already located. UJEP is the only university in the Ústí Region and was opened on September 28, 1991. It comprises seven faculties, has nearly 1,000 employees, and 11,900 students.