Ostrava does not want to buy the deteriorating fashion house Ostravica

Ostrava - Ostrava does not plan to buy the dilapidated Fashion House Ostravica-Textilia in the city center. The owner of the series of three buildings is Amádeus Real, which has offered the city to purchase these properties for approximately 158 million crowns. However, the city lacks the funds for both the purchase and necessary repairs, Mayor Petr Kajnar (ČSSD) told journalists today.
    "It must be said that the city does not budget for such an amount, and even if we were to obtain this money from somewhere, repairing the entire Ostravica would cost at least half a billion crowns. So these are also funds that the city does not have," Kajnar stated. He added that the buildings are also intended for commercial use, and therefore it would be more advantageous for a developer to acquire them.
    The Amádeus Real company initially planned to partially use the historic buildings and connect them with a new shopping center, which it intended to build on the adjacent plots at Dr. Edvard Beneš Square. However, the company withdrew from the purchase agreement for the plots in March. The city now faces the risk of having to return not only 54 million crowns of the already paid purchase price of the land, but the company had previously indicated that it would also seek compensation for the damages incurred.
    The reason for the withdrawal from the contract was that the city district of Moravská Ostrava and Přívoz refused to give consent for the site of the shopping center, thus blocking the zoning process according to the private company. The city has called on the district again to provide this consent.
    "The council of the Moravská Ostrava and Přívoz district will decide on Thursday. We'll see how it turns out," Kajnar added, noting that in a possible court dispute over the validity of the termination of the purchase agreement, the missing consent for the construction site could play an important role. According to Kajnar, the city officials wanted to meet with the investor in person and discuss the future of the project. "Amádeus Real has stated that it will only communicate with us in writing," Kajnar said.
    Two of the three dilapidated historic buildings are listed as protected monuments. The decline of what was once the most luxurious department store in the city began in 2000 when it closed after its ceilings collapsed during an unauthorized renovation. A petition for the rescue of the former department store was created in the city, which has been signed by more than 5,600 people in its online version alone.