Prague 6 is on the path to an agreement regarding the Polar Bear

The new owners of the company Victory Square, which has a long-standing contract with the city hall for the use of land at Victory Square, are this year the financial group Penta along with the Kaprain Group of financier Karel Pražák. They do not want to build the Polar Bear, which was criticized by part of the public and was proposed by the original owner PPF Real Estate, in the gap between Verdunská and Jugoslávských partyzánů streets. According to the mayor, a smaller building is expected to be created, likely a residential building with shops on the ground floor.

"The company Victory Square is willing to pay half of the debt by the end of the year, which would open the door for further negotiations about the form of the project," said the mayor. According to him, after the payment of about ten million, both parties would withdraw lawsuits that they filed against each other about a year ago. It is still unclear whether the city hall will sell the land. "If the city district is not ownership-bound in the project, I cannot imagine that it would own land under someone else's building," the mayor stated regarding this. Victory Square has a right of first refusal on the land according to a contract from 2011.

Karel Pražák, a former associate of PPF owner and the richest Czech Petr Kellner, bought vast parking lots next to the O2 Arena in Vysočany this year, where he wants to build houses worth several billion crowns. Pražák's holding owns, among other things, a project for the construction of skyscrapers at the Chodov metro station and is a co-owner of an outlet center near Ruzyně or the Mercury shopping center in České Budějovice.

The investment group Penta was founded in 1994. It operates mainly in healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, retail, and real estate development. It operates in more than ten European countries and has representations in Prague, Bratislava, Warsaw, and Munich. Next year, it is expected to start building a shopping center in close proximity to Masaryk Station in Prague's heritage reserve.