The Zbrojovka area will be dormant for at least two years, J&T is preparing studies

Brno - Construction at the site of the former Zbrojovka Brno will not begin sooner than in two years. The Czech-Slovak financial group J&T, which won the tender for the site for 707 million crowns, is already preparing the documentation for the urban study. However, it has not yet paid for the twenty-two-hectare land and the properties on it, therefore it does not have detailed documentation available, said group spokesman Petr Málek today to CTK. Instead of production halls and warehouses, shops, offices, apartments, and a hotel are set to rise near the city center.
    The January auction of the bankrupt Zbrojovka site, with a final price of 707 million, is the largest in the country so far. According to experts, one of the most extensive brownfields in Brno has a favorable location. It is only a few minutes' drive from the city center, and the area is well served by public transport. "The significance of the area for the future development of Brno is indisputable," believes Dušan Palcr, who oversees the Zbrojovka project at J&T.
    The construction of this new city within a city will take several years. Before that, the company must remove old ecological burdens, which will cost up to hundreds of millions of crowns. In addition to project documentation, it must also wait for a change in the zoning plan. The municipality has already started working on it, but approval can take a year and a half or more.
    According to Málek, it is premature to talk about whether architects will retain some original buildings. That will be shown in the upcoming study, the spokesman noted. The oldest building dates back to 1870, and most of the houses are from the first half of the 20th century. However, the entire site has not been maintained for several years. Zbrojovka ceased production definitively only last summer, but it has been in bankruptcy since 2003.
    J&T is one of the largest financial groups operating in the Czech Republic. It controls, among other things, Pražská Energetika, the football club Sparta Prague, and ČKD Blansko Engineering Works. A project similar to the one in Brno is also planned in Prague. In the Karlín area of the Prague Engineering Works, it aims to build a commercial center for 2.5 billion.