Old Plzenec will build a new school building with a sports hall for 150 million CZK

visualization: Ing. arch. Petr Sova, 2017

Starý Plzenec - The five-thousand-strong Starý Plzenec will build a new four-story school building with a sports hall for approximately 150 million CZK. In the town near Plzeň, where the population is significantly increasing, the capacity of the large school in the square has already been filled. The project has been in development since 2017, said Mayor Vlasta Doláková (STAN) to ČTK.

"We added both kindergartens and the demographic curve is shifting to the primary school. We can no longer accommodate all students there, and for the third year, we are placing some students in a separate facility of the former primary school in Malá Strana," the mayor stated.

According to her, the city has a "beautiful project" for the extension of the historic building in the square, including the sports hall, thanks to an architectural competition. It has building permission and wants to announce a tender for the contractor by the end of the year. "As construction work and material prices are rising, our budget is stretching a bit," said the mayor. After recalculation according to the new July price list, the costs amount to 148 million CZK, which the city wants to cap at the tender. Before the pandemic, the price was 12 million CZK lower. Recently, council members approved a credit framework of 100 million CZK. "We will probably have to go for a larger loan," the mayor stated. The city has saved around 70 million crowns in its account. "But saving, as it turns out, is not the ideal option because, with rising inflation and construction prices, it is necessary to invest the money, not to save it," she added.

The extension between the school and the railway line will be a solitary four-story building with eight new classrooms. It will include an integrated sports hall, mostly buried underground, utilizing the slope of the terrain from the tracks and taking up minimal space from the school garden. A green roof will thus replace the garden.

The city will receive a grant from the European operational program Environment for the construction, which will cover 30 percent of the costs. "To avoid completely overwhelming our budget, we are trying to obtain additional grants. We have tried the Ministry for Regional Development, the National Sports Agency, and we will see," Doláková stated.

Starý Plzenec currently has 360 children in the primary school in the square and an additional 85 students in grades 1 to 5 in Sedlec. After the extension of the school in the square, its capacity will increase to approximately 540 students. According to an analysis of demographic development, which the city commissioned, it should be filled within about five years. "Young families are moving to us; there are development areas for housing, so we expect further population growth," she mentioned. Starý Plzenec has grown by about 1,000 inhabitants over the past ten years to the current 5,176.

A similarly large investment by the city was the sewerage and expansion of the treatment plant for 230 million crowns between 2012 and 2014. Another nearly 70 million crowns was spent by Starý Plzenec in 2013 on a by-pass around the town.