The Vlček family foundation is looking for a company to repair the house in the Cibulka estate

Prague – The Vlček Family Foundation has announced a tender for a construction company that will renovate the former gardener's house in the northwestern part of the Cibulka estate, where a children's hospice will be established. The estimated cost is 20.6 million crowns including VAT. This is the first phase of the estate's renovation, which the foundation estimates will cost half a billion crowns. This was reported today by the foundation's spokesman Mirek Čepický. The long-neglected estate was purchased by the foundation of the CEO of antivirus company Avast, Ondřej Vlček, and his wife Katarína at the beginning of last year.

According to the call published on the foundation's website, the current tender pertains only to the former gardener's house, and a new tender will be announced for the planned further work. However, the owners of the estate are looking for a company that they would potentially be able to collaborate with on the renovation of the entire estate after the completion of the first house, which will also include the construction of a new building.

The renovation of the former gardener's house is set to begin in November this year and should be completed by next July according to the schedule. The building is in a state of disrepair; in the future, there will be a café and a community space for the foundation. The new design of the house was created by architects from the foundation's team, František Brychta and Ivana Dvořáková.

Suppliers who have been convicted in the last five years for corruption or fraud, have tax debts, or are on any international sanctions lists are not allowed to apply for the two-stage tender. Companies can submit their applications for participation until August 15.

For the overall renovation and expansion of Cibulka, the foundation has announced an architectural competition, in which the proposal from the studio Petr Hájek Architekti was successful. "The entire new estate with the Center for Children's Palliative Care and the newly built inpatient hospice in the eastern garden is intended to be opened by the Vlček Family Foundation on October 22, 2026, which is exactly the 200th anniversary of the death of Bishop Leopold Thun-Hohenstein, during whose era the estate was at its peak," Čepický stated.

The fate of the long-vacant estate has been discussed since the 1990s, and it has been occupied by squatters several times. The former owner Oldřich Vaníček approached the Prague 5 municipality two years ago with an offer to sell, but then changed his mind and began negotiations with another interested party, which turned out to be the Vlček foundation. Ondřej and Katarína Vlček invested assets worth 1.5 billion crowns into their newly established foundation with the goal of building a children's hospice and palliative center.

The Vlčeks are continuing the activities of their six-year-old charitable organization, Zlatá rybka, whose mission is to fulfill the wishes of children who have life-threatening illnesses. The assets of their family foundation come from Vlček's 25 years of work at Avast, which has become a successful global software company during that time. His wife Katarína is a doctor working in the mobile hospice Cesta domů.