Liberec has selected a supplier for hundred million crown projects, but is keeping it a secret for now

Liberec - The new leadership of Liberec has selected construction companies that will be tasked with completing the swimming pool and renovating the municipal bathhouse building. This was stated today by Jiří Šolc (Liberec to Citizens), the deputy mayor of Liberec, to journalists. The names of the companies that succeeded in the competition, as well as the amount for which they are supposed to carry out the work, have not yet been disclosed by the city. They will do so after the city councilors receive this information.
The costs for the renovation of the bathhouse are expected to exceed 300 million crowns, and the completion of the swimming pool is estimated to cost around 140 million, according to previous information. The projects are to be financed from European sources through the integrated urban development program, Lidové sady. Contrary to expectations, it is said that the final prices have been reduced. "They are lower than they were in the tender conditions," Šolc noted. The city councilors are expected to discuss the projects again in March.
Four bidders expressed interest in the completion of the swimming pool, two of whom were excluded. Three companies wanted to renovate the bathhouse. The contracts were awarded by the previous city leadership, and according to some members of the current city leadership, the small number of applicants may indicate that the projects were "tailor-made" for one of the Liberec companies. However, such speculations have not been confirmed. Šolc stated that the evaluation committee met several times and assessed the offers for about two months. Both constructions are expected to commence later this year. "Nothing is changing. The speculations that the projects were overpriced have also not been confirmed," said the deputy mayor.
The mayor's deputy for economics, Jaromír Baxa (Change for Liberec), stated that the number of bidders for the contracts was low, lower than for some similar constructions recently built in the Czech Republic. A similar opinion is held by Zuzana Kocumová (Union for Sports and Health). "I think some criteria were indeed based on certain assumptions," she said. However, another member of the city leadership explained the low number of interested parties, especially for the bathhouse, among other reasons due to the difficulty of the renovation.
The new leadership of Liberec announced at the beginning of the year that it is preparing an analysis of the projects to be financed through integrated urban development programs. The previous city council prepared three such programs. In addition to Lidové sady, there are Rochlice and Attractive and Quality Life in Liberec. The city can obtain grants from them for projects worth approximately 1.5 billion crowns by 2015.