Liberec will announce a tender for the repair of Uran for the third time, anticipating a price of almost 142 million CZK

Liberec - Liberec will seek a company for the third time in a selection process to repair the seven-story administrative building Uran. The city has set the maximum price for the contract at 141.812 million crowns, including value-added tax. This amount is about 40 million higher than the city had expected during the first unsuccessful tender held a year and a quarter ago. Compared to previous competitions, the transformation of the building's ground floor into facilities for the adjacent bus station will also be included. These works account for about ten million crowns of the total amount, said the city's mayor, Jaroslav Zámečník (Mayors for the Liberec Region - SLK), to reporters.

The building with a steel skeleton has been standing on 1st May Street since 1969. The city has owned it since 2005, and apart from the reconstruction of the ground floor in 2009, Uran has not undergone any significant repair. No other administrative building in the city is in worse technical condition. Uran needs to primarily restore its facade, which poses a danger to its surroundings. Protective scaffolding surrounds the office building to prevent anything from falling onto the sidewalk that leads to the train station.

According to the original plans, the building was supposed to be after reconstruction already. However, in the first selection process in the fall of 2021, the winner withdrew, and the other two applicants did not meet the conditions of the process. In the repeated competition last year, the only applicant was Metrostav, but the city administration could not award the contract to this company due to its conviction in the so-called second branch of the corruption case involving former Central Bohemia governor David Rath.

Before last year’s municipal elections, part of the current city council coalition criticized the project and requested that the city find a cheaper solution for the reconstruction. However, according to Deputy Mayor Jiří Janďourek (SLK), they did not find one. "From the perspective of reviewing individual items where we were looking for savings, we ultimately found that these were such minor items that would not contribute to a significant reduction in price," said the deputy mayor. The city council unanimously approved the issuance of the selection process in this form, according to Zámečník.

Thus, the conversion of the ground floor, where the vehicle registration office is currently located, for the needs of the bus station will also be part of the contract. "We will be relocating the entire registration office facilities out of Uran, thus freeing up the entire ground floor," said the mayor. According to him, the vehicle registration office will be moved to the S tower building, where employees from the social department already relocated from Uran in the fall of the year before last. The city is leasing part of the S tower building from a private company, as it does not have any other suitable premises of its own.

The bus station urgently needs better facilities, as it has long been considered an embarrassment for the fifth largest city in the country. During the last modernization of the platforms in the mid-1990s, there was no money left for the check-in building, and since then, travelers have been served by a temporary facility made of construction cells.