Pardubice Region will purchase part of the listed protected mills for the gallery

Pardubice - The Pardubice Region will purchase part of the historically protected Winternitz automatic mills from private owners for a new headquarters of the East Bohemian Gallery. Regional councilors today approved the purchase of the multi-story main building for 22.5 million crowns, with an expert opinion estimating the market price at 23.3 million crowns. The agreement includes the acquisition of processed project documentation.

"This opens the door to a hundred-million grant from the Integrated Territorial Investments (ITI) program of the Hradec Králové-Pardubice agglomeration," said Deputy Governor Roman Línek (Coalition for Pardubice Region). By moving to new premises, the gallery will free up space in the Pardubice Castle, where a visitor center and an exhibition on the Pernštejn family will be created. According to Línek, the grant has been preliminarily negotiated with the ITI Steering Committee.

The regional government will also contribute 13.5 million crowns to the owners for the modification of the entrance area and the interior courtyard of the complex. This will also include the demolition of unsuitable structures, with the final design to be consulted with the region, which will gain several parking spaces in return.

The Pardubice Region anticipates that the reconstruction of its part of the building for the needs of the gallery will cost 160 million crowns excluding VAT. The reconstruction could begin at the end of 2019.

Architect Lukáš Smetana and his wife purchased the Automatic Mills from GoodMills in 2016, which ceased production in the complex in 2013, and Pardubice did not take the opportunity to buy the complex. According to land register data, the Smetanas paid a total of 22,284,396 crowns for the land and buildings based on three contracts. In addition to the Pardubice Region, Pardubice itself is also interested in utilizing part of the site. For seven million crowns, they are to acquire the right to build the Central Polytechnical Workshops for schools, including project documentation. Smetana is preparing the reconstruction of the remaining part of the mills' complex, and he too could receive tens of millions of crowns from the ITI grant. Today he verbally promised that after the sustainability period of the project ends, he would transfer the land in front of the mills to the city of Pardubice.

The mills were designed by architect Josef Gočár for brothers Egon and Karel Winternitz. They were built between 1909 and 1911, and in the 1920s a new silo was added, connected to the older part via a bridge. Their architecture evokes the Babylonian Ishtar Gate. In the second half of the last century, the left riverside wing was extended by a four-story annex, and additional buildings were constructed in the complex. Since 2014, the mills have been a national cultural monument.