Olomouc will announce a new competition for the use of the former bus station

Olomouc - The Olomouc City Hall will announce a new competition for the lease and subsequent sale of land in the area of the former bus station near the city center. The original competition, which was announced by the former city leadership in the middle of last year, has been canceled by the councilors. They expect that the new competition will reveal better quality proposals for the use of the area adjacent to the market and the city heritage reserve than in the previous competition. Mayor Martin Novotný told reporters today.
    Last year's competition received three applicants: CTP Invest, Zenmex, and Lordship Estates. All proposals included the construction of a multifunctional building, for instance, with apartments, shops, restaurants, or offices. The plans evoked mixed reactions. For example, Jan Kubeš from the Olomouc National Heritage Institute told journalists that just three proposals are not a sufficient guarantee of the best possible solution that would correspond to the significance of the location.
    "After deep consideration, the council decided to cancel the original competition and announce a new one. The location is so urbanistically and economically valuable that it does not consider it a great success that only three applicants came to the first competition," noted the mayor.
    He added that the proposals that appeared in the already canceled competition are also not considered ideal by the city leadership. "None of them inspires us in the sense that we would say, this is what we dreamed of there," said Novotný.
    The city hall will announce a new competition in about a month. According to the mayor, the city will reach out to more potential investors in this context than in the last competition. For example, the city will publish information about the competition in professional Czech and foreign journals.
    The city hall is still working on the criteria for the competition, and Novotný did not want to comment on them for now. However, he stated that part of the conditions will be the city's requirement that the investor use part of the area to build an underground or above-ground parking lot for the public.
    The bus station by the market, which covers nearly 16,000 square meters, ceased operation in 1981 when buses were moved to the then-new station in the city district of Hodolany.