The Dancing House was sold for 360 million

Prague - The Dancing House in Prague has been sold for 360 million crowns. It was acquired from the previous owner CBRE Global Investors by the Prague Property Management of real estate entrepreneur Václav Skala. The price was announced today by the company Jones Lang LaSalle, which facilitated the sale. The sale of the building was highlighted last week by the newspaper E15.
    About ten investors, including the development group Central Group, were interested in the building, which offered ten million euros for it. "The sale process of the Dancing House, one of the most iconic buildings in Central Europe, possibly all of Europe, confirms the fact that buildings with exceptional architecture always attract exceptional interest from investors,” commented Stuart Jordan, head of the investment department at Jones Lang LaSalle, on the high investor interest.
    The previous owner, CBRE Global Investors, will remain in the building as one of the tenants. "The Dancing House is a modern building in a good location and possesses other qualities for which we chose the building as the headquarters for our company now and in the future," stated Martin Sabelko, CEO of CBRE Global Investors for the CEE region.
    Former banker Václav Skala, who now lives in Monaco, was the chairman of the board of Bankovní dům Skala from 1990 to 1996, which later went bankrupt. In 1997, then-Minister of Finance Ivan Pilip estimated the support for Skala's bank, which lost its banking license, at 3.18 billion crowns. Additionally, in the early nineties, Skala co-founded the later embezzled Trend fund, from which more than a billion crowns disappeared. In the Czech Republic, Skala now owns several real estate companies, including Prague Property Management. This company buys and then sells residential buildings and apartment houses extensively, primarily in Prague. Last year, according to the newspaper E15, the company reported an undistributed profit of 1.9 billion crowns from previous years.
    The Dancing House building on Rašínovo nábřeží in Prague was completed in 1996. It appeared on the market for the very first time since then. The previous owner was CBRE Global Investors, which acquired the building in 2011 during the takeover of European and Asian assets from ING Real Estate Investment Management.
    The modern building filled a gap left by a historical house that was hit by American bombing at the end of World War II. The Dancing House was designed by architects Vlado Milunić and Frank O. Gehry, who was invited to the project by the investor. The interiors of the investor's offices were partly entrusted to British architect of Czech origin Eva Jiřičná.
    The building has nine floors with a vertical division into two parts. Due to the shape of the building, each floor is different. The building features 2,965 m² of usable office space across six floors, a restaurant covering 679 m² on the top floor, and a conference center (400 m²) in the ground floor and basement.