Pardubice will offer Machoň's Passage in a public competition

Pardubice - Pardubice have decided to sell the dilapidated passage designed by architect Ladislav Machoň in the city center. The representatives today decided that a public tender will be announced for the sale. Before that, the ownership of the buildings and land related to the passage will be transferred from the Municipal Development Fund to the city for more favorable taxation of the transaction.
    One interested party, a Czech company with Dutch capital, has already contacted the municipality some time ago. For the two buildings with registration numbers 60 and 450, they offered 130 million crowns, and they were also interested in the neighboring building number 90, making the purchase price for all three buildings with land 200 million crowns.
    The city has postponed the decision once and had an analysis prepared with several options. The working group ultimately recommended selling building number 60 with the passage and related building number 450 through a public competition. According to the analysis, disposing of the new building of object number 90 would be unfavorable, as the annual rental income amounts to about 3.5 million crowns, and upon sale, the Municipal Development Fund would have to additionally pay the VAT deduction.
    "In November 2007, the Municipal Development Fund commissioned an assessment of how much the reconstruction of the passage would cost. The result was an amount of 242 million crowns with a payback period of 38 years. Therefore, we concluded that selling objects 60 and 450 would be the most suitable option," said working group member Petr Klimpl.
    Opposition representative for the ČSSD Jindřich Tauber proposed that the city "not sell the family silver" and rather seek a way to repair the passage with the help of a private investor, to whom it would then rent it. Nevertheless, the majority of the representatives raised their hands in favor of the sale. They also approved the principles of the future commercial competition. Its components include, in addition to price and payment conditions, a study of the project for the reconstruction of the buildings, including traffic solutions, financing of construction, and a work schedule. The competition does not exclude the possibility of a long-term rental of the buildings for 50 years.
    The passage with apartments and commercial spaces was designed by architect Ladislav Machoň in the Art Deco style in the 1920s and is listed among the protected heritage buildings. The building is now in poor technical condition.