The demolition work at the former Prior in Brno closed the footbridge to Galerie Vaňkovka

Brno - The demolition of part of the terrace of the former department store Prior near Brno's main railway station has today closed the pedestrian bridge leading to the shopping center Galerie Vaňkovka for three days. The entire building of the former Prior will be brought down in January, and on its site and the surrounding plots, six new buildings will be constructed by 2027.

The aim of the work that started today is to separate part of the terrace adjoining the pedestrian bridge from the demolished brutalist building. "A separate steel platform will be placed here, which will no longer be structurally connected to the old building. At the same time, this platform will be provisionally connected to the remainder of the terrace of the old department store, so the bridge will be able to serve its purpose again from Thursday," said spokesman for the development group Crestyl, Ondřej Micka.

In the coming months, builders will also connect new steel staircases and escalators to the steel platform, and the entire new access point will be put into operation in February. After that, it will be possible to tear down the entire remainder of the department store's terrace.

The demolition of the Prior building itself will begin in January, will be gradual, and will last four months. Immediately afterward, construction of the New Dornych project is set to begin. In the area next to the main railway station, a partially covered public space and six buildings are to be created by 2027, with the tallest having eight floors. The connection to the underpass beneath the main station and the bridge above Úzká street will remain. There will be 186 rental apartments in the new buildings, complemented by 26,000 m² of office space and 27,000 m² designated for shops.

The former Prior building is one of the last representatives of the architectural style of brutalism in Brno. It was completed in 1984 and is a fragment of the original, much larger project that encompassed the entire area south of the Grand bus station and accounted for the relocation of the main railway station. According to the plan, a large regional center was to be created with two department stores and a commercial and service building with 22 floors. The project began to develop in the 1960s, was postponed after the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact troops in 1968, and only a more modest version was realized, resulting in the construction of the OD Prior.