The never-finished hotel in Teplice is disappearing, to be replaced by shops

Neighboring project New Gallery Teplice

Teplice - For several weeks now, workers have been demolishing the building of a hotel that was never completed at the corner of Svobody Square in Teplice. It was designed at the end of the communist era by the SIAL studio, but as the only one in the whole block, it was never completed, and for the next 20 years, only the lower floors were used. Now it is to disappear and make way for a shopping center costing around a billion crowns, which is being built by the JTH company of local entrepreneur Jaroslav Třešňák. Critics argue that the center of the city is not prepared for the influx of cars.
In the 1960s, planners intended to demolish the center of the historic city and build a new, panel-based, and less dense one. Bulldozers gradually began to destroy the southwestern part of the center, also taking away the buildings along Dlouhá Street, including the Radnice hotel. However, this was already in the 1980s, and in Teplice, the Liberec architectural studio SIAL began to create, which designed very unconventional buildings for its time, respecting the traditional street structure. But only the skeleton of the new hotel on the site of Radnice was built, later used only up to the height of the first floor.
Now it is disappearing. "The demolition work will take about two months and should not burden the surroundings more than is absolutely necessary. Within sixteen months of the start of construction, the shopping options for the citizens of the city and the nearby area will expand with dozens of new shops," JTH informed today in a press release.
The new shopping gallery will be called Fontana; it is expected to cost around a billion, offering 20,000 square meters of retail and entertainment space over five floors, as well as 400 parking spaces in an underground garage. Investors are not afraid of disinterest; in Teplice, there are reportedly only 570 meters of modern retail space per 1000 inhabitants, while the opening of Fontana will double that amount. Key grocery sales will be handled by Spar, announced the investor.
The relative lack of large shopping centers in the eighty-thousand-strong agglomeration will, however, probably create a paradoxical situation - two will be built directly opposite each other. During the next year, the Prior department store is also set to disappear, with its reconstruction into a similarly large shopping gallery expected to cost about 1.2 billion crowns. It is also planned to open in the spring of 2013, offering the same 20,000 square meters of retail space and 450 parking spaces. According to Deník, tenants have already disappeared from the current Prior, and the last one, the Billa chain, will close by October 30.
However, local non-profit organizations criticize the concurrency of the projects. "I think two identical projects will have a hard time surviving. Even worse could be that the city center, which is not prepared for it, will get filled with car traffic after they open," said Matěj Hon from the ProPolis association, which has tried to provide feedback on the constructions. "We wanted to stimulate a public debate in the city, which we somewhat succeeded in, but the ideas generated did not lead anywhere," he added.
Both centers will be viable, believes investor Třešňák. "We are different - smaller, we will respect the street block and fit into it. I believe the two centers will complement each other more," he told ČTK. The underground parking lot is said to have a total of about 400 spaces; half for visitors, the other half will be offered for long-term rent to residents of nearby houses.