Praha 8 plans to sell the unfinished shell of the building Centrum Palmovka

Prague - The Prague 8 municipality intends to sell the unfinished shell of the Palmovka Center building. The city council has approved the wording of a letter in which the municipality requests consent. This follows from their resolution. The construction, which was to house the town hall and the emergency service, has been plagued by long-term problems. Most recently, last fall, the company Metrostav terminated the city's contract for the construction of the building. Prague councilor Jan Chabr (TOP 09) told the server aktualne.cz that there seems to be no other solution than selling it.

"One of the options to address this is the sale of the entire project to a third party, likely a private company," said Mayor Ondřej Gros (ODS) to ČTK. According to him, the municipality has already sent the letter to the city hall. The municipality needs consent because it received a grant from the city for the completion during the previous electoral term.

It is unclear when a potential sale could take place. At the same time, according to Gros, there is currently no expert assessment of the value of the unfinished building.

The project worth 1.1 billion was approved in 2010. However, the previous leadership of Prague 8 questioned the ownership of the building after the elections in 2014, and the object became the subject of legal disputes between Prague 8, the city hall, and Metrostav. Eventually, the parties agreed that Prague 8 would complete the building, for which it would receive 600 million from the city. However, Metrostav withdrew from the contract last November due to missing expert assessments.

About half of the building was intended for the emergency service, while the rest was to be the headquarters of the municipality. Thus, the city hall will likely need to start looking for a new location to build the headquarters for the rescuers.