The state will electronically auction the Broadway Palace in Prague for a billion by Thursday

Prague – Today at 9:00 AM, an electronic auction for the Broadway Palace in Prague 1, organized by the state, begins. The starting price is 1.05 billion crowns. This information comes from the Office for the Representation of the State in Property Affairs (ÚZSVM). According to them, this is the sale with the highest minimum price in the history of the office. The deposit is 20 million crowns, and the minimum bid increase is 200,000 crowns. The auction will end on Thursday at noon. The building from the 1930s is one of the largest functionalist structures in the historical center of Prague.

"This is a unique investment opportunity. Since the first day of this offer's publication, we have seen interest from foreign investors. I believe that the electronic auction will successfully find a new owner who will find meaningful use for this exceptional complex," said the General Director of ÚZSVM, Kateřina Arajmu.

ÚZSVM took over the Broadway Palace in 2016 from the then state administration of railways and transport (now the Railway Administration). According to the law, the office first offered the palace to other state institutions, but none of them, according to ÚZSVM, expressed interest. Therefore, the office is now seeking a new owner for the palace through a transparent selection procedure with an electronic auction, according to the ÚZSVM report.

"This sale is unique even in terms of the announced amount. It is, in fact, the sale with the highest minimum price in the entire history of ÚZSVM," Arajmu stated previously. The state received the previous highest amount, 790 million crowns, from the sale of a site in Republic Square in Prague, according to the office. Another of the highest amounts came from the auction of the Prague site U Půjčovny, which sold for 355.1 million after 100 bids.

The Broadway Palace is located between Na Příkopě and Celetná streets. It consists of three connected wings, which include shops, restaurants, and offices in addition to the theater. According to documents on the ÚZSVM website, the complex has a total of 5,375 square meters of office space and over 3,000 square meters of retail space, including the area used by the theater. The complex was built between 1936 and 1938 as the Sevastopol Palace, designed by architects Bohumír Kozák and Antonín Černý. The building initially served the needs of Italian savings banks, and there were apartments in part of the complex. In the basement, a cinema was established in 1938, which is now used by the musical Broadway Theater. After 1980, the building was adapted for administrative purposes.

Established in 2002, ÚZSVM manages state property and represents the Czech Republic in legal disputes regarding state assets instead of other organizational components of the state. The main source of revenue for the office consists of sales and rentals of land, buildings, and structures, as well as funds that the state has received from "escheat" cases for deceased individuals without heirs. Last year, the office's revenues fell by six percent year-on-year to 1.39 billion crowns. The most successful year for ÚZSVM was 2015, when it earned 1.93 billion from sales. In February 2018, the office launched an electronic auction system, in which, as of mid-March this year, 11,742 electronic auctions were held, from which the state earned 960 million crowns.