Praha 12 will announce a selection procedure for its new town hall

Prague - Prague 12 wants to relocate its officials to a new town hall, which it aims to find through a tender process. Representatives from the town hall announced this to journalists today. The municipality is looking to acquire a building for 250 officials. Both the construction of a new building and the use of an already constructed object are under consideration. The municipality intends to first lease the building, with the price fixed for a potential future purchase of the property. The municipality expects that the costs for purchasing the town hall will not exceed half a billion, including VAT.
     The announcement of the tender was approved by the council of Prague 12 yesterday. The tender is expected to be in two rounds. The town hall anticipates that interested parties will initially apply, to whom it will then provide the tender documentation and negotiate specific terms. By the end of summer or in the fall, the town hall would like to sign a contract with the selected bidder, with a desire to relocate to the new premises in 2015. "However, it may happen that we do not select anyone, that the conditions will not be favorable. Nothing is predetermined," stated Mayor František Adámek (ČSSD).
     According to Deputy Mayor Marek Rejman (Change for Prague 12), the municipal district wants to take advantage of the fact that property and construction prices have decreased in recent years. Therefore, it wants to negotiate a favorable price for the acquisition of a new property, but it does not want to sell its current buildings, where the office is located, for now. "We believe that this approach is the most advantageous and does not force us to sell off everything we have to build the town hall," Rejman told journalists. This way, the municipality will have funds for further investments, such as the renewal of the sports facility in Modřanská gorge and the reconstruction of the Modřany vineyard.
     The municipality will use 160 million crowns for the new town hall, which it previously obtained from the sale of the Točná airport. Additional funds will come from the sale of the current office buildings, from privatization, and from leasing the Prior department store.
     Prague 12 has also designated an area in the center of Modřany where the town hall should be built. This is the location around Sofijské náměstí, the current site on Písková street, the Tyl quarter, and the area in V Píšovicích. The municipality owns land there on which the town hall could be constructed.
     It would like to purchase the new building about three years after obtaining the occupancy permit. Until then, it wants to be in a lease. It expects to pay annually approximately the same amount as the operating costs of the current office buildings. These costs amount to about 14 million crowns.
     The municipal office currently resides in seven buildings that, according to spokesperson Jan Decker, are poorly accessible. The buildings are not close to public transport stops and do not have barrier-free access. The municipality considered building an extension to the currently used building on Písková street years ago. The previous leadership wanted to renovate the Prior department store on Sofijské náměstí. However, the current leadership believes that the project is outdated and its reconstruction would be too expensive.
     Other municipalities are also considering new town halls; for instance, Prague 8 wants to build a new town hall and shopping center near Palmovka. The costs will exceed one billion crowns.