The first parking garage will be built by Brno on Panenská Street

Brno - The multi-storey car park on Panenská Street next to the Brno City Hall will be the first parking facility that the city aims to address the urgent parking situation in the city center. The project will be constructed by the company Brno Parking, in which the city has a thirty percent ownership stake. The municipality will provide the land. Within a month, the city intends to reach an agreement with the investor on the rules for operating the future building and also on how to share the profits from parking fees, Mayor Roman Onderka said to reporters today.
    "Brno is ready to negotiate that this parking building will be constructed by a private entity, operated for a certain period, and subsequently the city of Brno will benefit from it without investing additional funds besides the mentioned land," Onderka said.
    One option is that the profit from parking fees would initially go to the company. Once it has collected from motorists the money it invested in the construction, it would then share the collected parking fees with the city.
    Construction could likely begin next year; a valid zoning decision has been issued for it.
    Currently, there are thousands of parking spaces missing in the center of Brno. The number of spaces on the surface is expected to decrease further - the municipality wants to establish a car-free zone, for example, from Moravian or Dominican squares, where hundreds of vehicles are parked daily.
    About three years ago, the previous city council proposed the idea of building nine parking facilities with 4500 spaces around the historic core of the city. The project subsequently stalled. Officials considered whether European funds could be used for the construction. They found out that it was possible, but under strict conditions. Co-financing from European funds would amount to a maximum of 37 percent, and moreover, five years after the operation starts, all collected funds would need to start being paid back to Brussels. Therefore, Brno will likely not utilize the subsidy options.
    The second parking facility that Brno intends to build in the center will be garages under the park by Janáček Theater. Their construction will be part of a large-scale reconstruction project of the theater costing 1.2 billion crowns. Construction work is expected to begin next year.