The unfinished Palmovka Center could belong to Prague in the future

Prague – The unfinished Palmovka Center could potentially belong to the capital city in the future. The representatives of Prague 8 today approved the so-called transfer of the building and land. The municipality itself does not have the funds for the completion. Today's decision is the first step towards the transfer of property, which still needs to be approved by the Prague council and assembly. In exchange, Prague 8 will receive a grant of 550 million CZK from the magistrate. A part of the opposition criticized the leadership of the city district today, stating that the municipality lost the building and land, lost money, and the problem of constructing a new headquarters for officials remains unresolved. The leadership of Prague agrees with the exchange, represented by Mayor Zdeněk Hřib (Pirates) and Councilor Jan Chabr (TOP 09).

The construction of the building, which was supposed to be the new headquarters for the municipality and include commercial spaces, was approved by the previous leadership of the city district in 2010. The costs were then estimated to exceed one billion. However, the previous leadership of the municipality halted the construction and subsequently litigated over its ownership.

"This solution is meant to aid the comprehensive development of Palmovka and simultaneously resolve the problem we have. This step will lead to the resolution of this entire locality. Cooperation with the capital is probably the only way to prepare this area for sustainable development while also completing the Palmovka Center," said Councilor Tomáš Slabihoudek (TOP 09).

Mayor Ondřej Gros (ODS) added that this is a compromise, in which Prague 8 will receive the mentioned grant from the city in return, which will be disbursed in portions over the next five years. "I think this has been negotiated sensibly, that it will be spread over five years. Thus, the new leadership will also be able to count on receiving part of that grant," he said.

The process was criticized especially by the opposition movement 8žije. "The mayor presented this as a success, even though this is more like a bad dream, a tragedy in three acts. Each political representation after 2010 added its own mistakes. The whole transaction ends in a pure financial loss," said opposition representative Tomáš Němeček (8žije).

He was joined by opposition representatives Vladislava Vojtíšková (8žije) and Ondřej Buršík (8žije). "We don’t have a municipality, we likely don’t have the billion we sunk into this, and the need for a municipality remains," said Buršík. Vojtíšková reminded of the role of former Deputy Mayor Matěj Fichtner (ANO), who initially criticized the project under the banner of TOP 09, later supported it, and subsequently, as a member of the ANO movement and Deputy Mayor, with the then-coalition partner ČSSD and support from KSČM, halted it. Fichtner did not comment at the meeting.

Mayor Gros and representative Jozef Slobodník (ODS) stated that they stand by their decision to vote for the construction of the center in 2010. According to Slobodník, the construction was ahead of schedule during ODS governance, and most commercial spaces were pre-leased. "What happened in the years 2014 to 2018 is not entirely a question for me," Gros added.

On the other hand, opposition representative Petr Vilgus (Greens) supported the leadership of the municipality, calling the solution the only good one. Opposition representative Tomáš Pavlů (KDU-ČSL) called it "the least bad decision among all the other bad ones."

The city leadership preliminarily agrees with the exchange, and according to Chabr, this approach makes sense given the property law connections. It will also help solve the shortage of space for municipal officials. "We could no longer stand to look at it. The state of the project is a sad reflection of Prague 8 from past election periods. Thanks to intense negotiations with the current leadership, we managed to unblock the situation. We will take over the land with the building for management and find a solution that will be advantageous not only for Prague 8 but primarily for the citizens of all of Prague," added Mayor Hřib.