The post office building in Brno was purchased by Recollect, a company from the Trinity Bank group

Brno – The functionalist post office building at the main train station in Brno was purchased in an electronic auction by the company Recollect, which is part of the Financial Group Trinity Bank. A media representative of the company informed about this in a press release. The previous owner of the building, Česká pošta, confirmed on Monday the sale of the building in the electronic auction for 117 million crowns, but did not disclose the name of the auction winner.

"The goal of Recollect, the winner of the electronic auction, is to restore the beautiful functionalist appearance of this significant building after the successful completion of the purchase," the Recollect company stated today.

In response to a query from ČTK, the company stated that it does not plan to convert the building, for example, into apartments. "The building will be used in accordance with the zoning plan and the future character of the area after the relocation of the station and will be repaired to a quality state with respect to functionalism. Specific discussions with the responsible authorities will begin only after the purchase of the building and after an analysis of its neglect," the company stated in its statement.

Ivo Vysoudil, spokesperson for Česká pošta, stated on Monday that České dráhy has a pre-emptive right to the building, which will be offered to them at the price set by the electronic auction. The auction served to establish the market price of the building. However, Vanda Rajnochová, spokesperson for České dráhy, stated in response to ČTK’s inquiry that they do not wish to purchase the building. "České dráhy has a pre-emptive right to the building because it is located on their land. However, they did not take this offer," Rajnochová stated.

Česká pošta had previously stated that it has been considering the future of the building designed by architect Bohuslav Fuchs for some time, as its operation is unsatisfactory, uneconomical, and unnecessarily oversized. Instead of a branch right next to the main station, the post office plans to open two new branches – one at the Letmo Shopping Center opposite the station and one in the Šumavská Tower building in the Královo Pole district. However, the post office will operate in the building at the main station at least until the middle of next year.

The owner of the postal building, Trinity Bank, has been in the market for 25 years. The main pillars of the bank are financing real estate and development projects and long-term appreciation of money within savings and deposit accounts. The bank was formerly the Moravský Peněžní Ústav credit union. The company was founded in 1996 in Zlín and was one of the largest credit unions in the Czech Republic. It received a banking license from the Czech National Bank in mid-December 2018 and subsequently changed its name to Trinity Bank.

According to the design by Bohuslav Fuchs, the station post office was built at the end of the 1930s as a temporary structure. Even then, there were considerations about relocating the Brno station, which is why Fuchs designed a lightweight steel structure for the building so that it could be easily dismantled. A rarity of the building is the paternoster lift, which the post office had repaired to operational condition in 2013. In the 1980s, the building was partially restored, but it currently needs a complete reconstruction.