The owner of the Žižkov station disagrees with heritage protection for the second time

Prague - The owner of the freight station in Žižkov will appeal against the designation of the building as a cultural monument. Petr Šťáhlavský, spokesman for Czech Railways, which is the majority owner of Žižkov Station Development, said this to ČTK today. The Ministry of Culture has declared the main station building a monument for the second time in February. Following the owner's second appeal, the case will be addressed by the Minister of Culture.
     The company Žižkov Station Development, of which the remaining 49 percent is owned by Sekyra Group, planned to build a new district on the site of the station. However, it needed a change in the zoning plan, which was awaiting a decision from the ministry. "Czech Railways has no interests in this location, is abandoning the area, and will not use it for its business plans, considering it superfluous. The area will not serve railway transport in the future," said Šťáhlavský.
     Nevertheless, the railways will file an appeal against the designation of the station building as a monument. "Also for the purpose of searching for potential future uses of the complex, so that future buyers can effectively utilize and reconstruct it for new purposes, we will use all available legal remedies against this decision," the spokesman said. The National Film Archive (NFA) would like to use the site for its future headquarters.
     The building was previously designated as a monument, but after the owner's appeal, the then Minister of Culture Jiří Besser revoked the decision and returned the case to his conservationists. Now the monument preservation department has again concluded that the freight station is a cultural monument due to its indisputable historical, technical, and architectural value.
     The NFA is looking for a new headquarters to replace the emergency and rented spaces at several locations in Prague. However, the archive would be satisfied with the main building; for utilizing additional extensive storage spaces, it is looking for another cultural institution to share the complex with.
     Investments in the headquarters of cultural institutions come from the National Cultural Heritage Care Program, which was approved by the government six years ago. It also considers the NFA, whose new headquarters was initially planned to be built in Nové Butovice. The new director of the NFA, Michal Bregant, would prefer the archive to be in the city center.
Any change to the program must be discussed by the Ministry of Culture. According to earlier statements by Bregant, the reconstruction of an already existing building would be cheaper than new construction, even considering technological requirements. There are 350 million crowns allocated in the mentioned program for the new headquarters of the NFA.