The parking garage at the Regional Office in Liberec will be built by BAK for nearly 196 million CZK

Liberec – The parking garage near the Regional Office in Liberec will be built by the company BAK. Construction of the building, which will have 244 parking spots and a green roof, is set to begin in April. It is expected to be completed in a year, said Zbyněk Miklík (Pirates), the Deputy Governor, to ČTK today. The project, which will cost the Liberec Region nearly 196 million crowns including VAT, is part of the first phase of adjustments around the seat of the region. A second phase is planned, which also includes the reclamation of the embankment of the Lužická Nisa river. It is intended to be transformed into a relaxation zone with access to the river.

Seven candidates applied for the public tender for the construction. "The criterion for selection was not only the price, but also the speed of delivery," added Miklík. In the first round, the company Syner finished in first place with a bid that was 800,000 crowns higher than BAK's, but promised to complete the construction in 300 days. However, according to Miklík, the representatives of the company did not respond to requests for supplementation and clarification, so the commission disqualified Syner, and the contract was awarded to BAK, which offered a lower price, even though the completion deadline is about 70 days longer.

The construction company BAK won the contract despite being sued by the Liberec Region over the construction of a vocational training center at the Secondary School of Crafts and Services in Jablonec nad Nisou. The school partially collapsed during the construction of the center, and the project significantly exceeded its budget. The region is seeking compensation for damages amounting to nearly 30.6 million crowns from BAK, the contractor Investing CZ, which provided construction supervision, and the project designer - the Hlaváček studio - architects.

"According to the law, the contracting authority may exclude a participant from the proceedings for incapacity if it proves that it has committed serious or long-term deficiencies in fulfilling a previous contractual relationship with the contracting authority in the last three years from the start of the procurement process. The company would need to have committed at least two or more mistakes, but the expert opinions are not uniform on this. Furthermore, BAK has long been among the largest Czech construction companies, so we decided that it would get the contract for the construction of the parking garage," added Miklík.

The construction of the parking garage is another stage in the renewal of the area around the regional office. The neighboring buildings and land were purchased by the Liberec Region from VÚTS (formerly the Research Institute of Textile Machines) in 2014. The region paid 125 million crowns for the area of more than 11,000 m². It converted the former administrative building into the European House for 97 million crowns, and two years ago, builders completed the reconstruction of the former workshop building for about 390 million crowns. A business incubator was established there, during the COVID period it served as a vaccination center, and now from March 1, the premises are utilized by the Regional Assistance Center for Ukraine (KACPU).