In the Jalta Palace in Brno, reconstruction worth 120 million is coming to an end

Brno - After nearly two decades, the functionalist Palace Jalta will reopen to the public this April on Brno's Dominican Square. Currently, workers are finishing the reconstruction, which cost the investors approximately 120 million crowns. An additional 110 million was paid to the city in 2016 as the purchase price. Today, ČTK visited the premises along with their owner Richard Saliba.

"Although Jalta is not officially a monument, the purchase agreement explicitly stated that we must have permission from the heritage authorities for the reconstruction. We often consulted with them, and it was an excellent collaboration," Saliba stated.

He has experience with renovations of similar properties. According to his own words, he has reconstructed about twenty buildings in the city center, including the Padowetz Palace at the corner of Masaryk Street and Bašta Street, and he also owns the Grand Hotel on Nádražní Street.

A good piece of news for investors was that although some older assessments rated the condition of Jalta as very poor, it turned out that the situation was not so terrible. "We had X-ray imaging done on all profiles, which helped us better determine the necessary static securing of the property. Subsequently, it was necessary to replace windows, repair all utilities, strengthen the floors, replace the elevators, and create a new facade," Saliba enumerated everything that was done with Jalta.

A curiosity about the Jalta Palace is its windows - while the style is uniform on the street side, due to construction modifications over the years, the building has 18 different window sizes. The investor had all the wooden casement windows custom-made again, even though the heritage authorities had no problem with adjusting the window openings to have a uniform shape.

From the purchase to the opening after the challenging reconstruction, just a little over two years will have passed. "It was possible to achieve this quickly thanks to hundreds of hours of consultations with experts even before submitting the documents to construction and other authorities, but also because we were not yet subject to the amendment of the Building Act, which complicated the process. This is clearly visible in comparison with the Typos Palace, which its owner bought half a year later and still does not have a construction decision," said the legal representative of the investors, Zdeněk Joukl.

Even though there are still three months until the official opening, all 8000 m² of rental space is already leased. "The Austrian honorary consul, law offices, architects, and an American high school are based here. Tenants had the opportunity to influence the spaces to some extent," Saliba added.

From April 1, the public will be able to walk through the spaces of the once-popular passage as well. It will feature a restaurant, an Italian fashion store, a beauty salon, and a gallery. "A cinema cabaret will probably open a little later, which will reopen the former cinema hall. However, the operator does not want to reveal the details yet," Saliba mentioned.

The Jalta Palace was built in 1929 and is one of the oldest functionalist buildings in Brno. After 1989, however, the space changed owners until it completely closed around the year 2000 and gradually deteriorated. In 2006, the city of Brno acquired the building in exchange for several properties, but reconstruction was beyond its means. Richard Saliba and Darina Ryglová bought the house from the city at the end of 2016.