The Property Office is selling the Invalidovna

Prague - The Office for Representation of the State in Property Matters (ÚZSVM) announced a tender for the sale of the baroque building of the former Invalidovna in Prague's Karlín district. The minimum price is 637.7 million crowns. Interested parties can submit their bids until August 8, followed by an auction. The property office stated this in a press release today; it is the most significant sale of state property this year. The Invalidovna is a cultural monument.

"Interested parties who send written bids by August 8 will immediately participate in the opening of the envelopes and will be able to bid above the highest written offer," specified ÚZSVM spokesman Radek Ležatka to ČTK regarding the next steps.

"The state does not need this specific complex for its activities, which is evidenced by the fact that it has not found any definitive use for it even nearly a hundred years after the departure of the last war veterans," stated ÚZSVM director Kateřina Arajmu. She mentioned to today's Lidové noviny that the office will launch an informational campaign about the sale of Invalidovna and will reach out for help to ambassadors and the CzechInvest agency, among others.

The Invalidovna complex includes a built-up area and courtyard of over 12,000 square meters and gardens that cover almost 10,000 square meters. The site is popular among filmmakers, with some scenes from Miloš Forman's Amadeus filmed there.

Invalidovna was built between 1731 and 1737 as a shelter for war veterans. The builders were inspired by a similar building in Paris. The plans for the construction were developed by the famous baroque architect Kilián Ignác Dientzenhofer in 1730, but due to a lack of funds, only one-ninth of the proposal was realized. The building served to accommodate war veterans until 1935.

Until recently, the Military Central Archive operated in Invalidovna, which moved to a reconstructed building in the barracks area in Prague-Ruzyně. The Ministry of Defense then transferred Invalidovna to the property office based on a government resolution. The office offered it for use to other institutions, which did not show interest.

Floods in 2002 severely damaged a large part of the archive in Invalidovna - around 30,000 boxes of archival materials were flooded. About 26,000 boxes of archival materials were saved from the disaster. Both the building and the military archive struggled to cope with the aftermath of the natural disaster, and the ground floor still bears visible signs of damage from the flood.

Last year, the state property office managed assets worth 18.5 billion crowns, of which real estate had an accounting value of approximately 10.6 billion crowns. Last year's revenues rose by 83 percent year-on-year to nearly two billion crowns, with building sales being the most significant item. The sale of the former monastery at Republic Square in Prague was the biggest contributor, auctioned off by the company Lagerris for 790 million crowns. This was a record amount from the sale of real estate in the entire history of the office. The company Lagerris was the only interested party and purchased the building at the starting price.