Poruba wants to acquire the residential building Oblouk

Ostrava – The Ostrava city district of Poruba wants to acquire the well-known apartment building Oblouk, which is one of the most famous structures of socialist realism in the Czech Republic. The locality aims to be modified in the future to return its original significance. This was announced to reporters today by the city hall spokesperson Martin Otipka.

According to him, the ownership relations in Oblouk are currently complicated. The entire building essentially consists of three houses. The property with building number 511, which is closest to Dělnická street, belongs to the company Residomo. Building number 500, the one with the tower by the SPB embankment, is owned by a housing cooperative. The remaining ten entrances have the building number 501, and Residomo and Poruba own an ideal share in them. The district thus wants to gain a co-ownership stake in the apartment building with building number 501 from Residomo and purchase the apartment building with number 511, including all adjacent land. In total, it concerns 128 apartments. The offered sales price from Residomo is 129 million crowns. "Oblouk is the gateway to Poruba and a symbol of our city district. It deserves to look dignified. If we manage to consolidate ownership of the apartments, we can proceed to reconstruction, elevate the entire locality and return its original functionality and significance," said Mayor Lucie Baránková (ANO). According to her, Poruba is also trying to negotiate with Residomo for part of the financial resources obtained from the sale to be returned to Poruba, where they would repair some of their buildings. The district expects that the subsequent reconstruction of Oblouk would cost about 145 million crowns.

Poruba wants to finance the purchase and repair of Oblouk from a loan. The council has requested a loan of 300 million crowns from the city, which they also want to use to finance the reconstruction of the building on Dělnická street, where a Community House for Seniors is to be established.

"The loan is designed so that we can repay the majority of it from the rents of the newly acquired apartments without limiting other important projects that we want to implement in accordance with our strategic plan in the coming years," added the mayor. Oblouk is the only building in Poruba that has been featured on postage stamps.

Residomo (formerly RPG Byty) owns more than 43,000 apartments in the Moravian-Silesian region. Nearly 90,000 people live in them. RPG Byty acquired the former mining apartments from its parent company co-owned by entrepreneur Zdeněk Bakala, RPG Industries, which purchased them in 2004 along with the mining company OKD. In the privatization contract, it committed to offering apartments for sale to tenants under non-market conditions in the case of sales. However, the company did not sell the apartments, and in 2015 the entire company changed ownership. Residomo is now owned by the British real estate company Round Hill Capital and the American investment firm Blackstone.