University of Pardubice wants to buy the building of the former Telegrafie

Pardubice – The University of Pardubice wants to buy the building of the former Telegrafie on Kyjevská Street near the Pardubice hospital. They would relocate the Faculty of Health Studies, which is currently located in cramped quarters, there. The brownfield site on Kyjevská Street, formerly belonging to Tesla, is planned to be redeveloped by Linkcity, which succeeded in a development competition organized by Pardubice, but the university itself will renovate the Telegrafie building, said the university's bursar, Petr Gabriel, to ČTK.

"Currently, we have the faculty located in a building shared with the Secondary Health School. The space and conditions are no longer sufficient, and its proximity to the hospital, with which the faculty collaborates, is advantageous for us," Gabriel stated.

According to him, the Telegrafie building, the oldest on the entire site, is relatively well-preserved, although completely run-down. It will only need to be structurally separated from the adjacent extension and separately registered in the land registry.

The usable area of the two-story Telegrafie is about 3,200 square meters. The university intends to relocate specialized laboratories, lecture halls, a smaller library, a study department, facilities for academic staff, meeting rooms, and a small bistro there. Only some lecture halls would remain in the buildings of the Secondary Health School, in which the school holds a one-fifth share.

According to Gabriel, the purchase price of the property should not be high, as the school would be buying it from the city, which currently owns the site, and the developer agrees with the transaction. The sale is expected to take place next year. The university will try to obtain a grant for the renovation.

The abandoned site was purchased by Foxconn at the turn of the millennium, with plans to set up a factory there. In the end, it sold it to the Pardubice Region for a symbolic one crown. Pardubice has owned the former Tesla since 2012. The city accepted the gift from the regional government with the condition that they build a transport connection to it and also a parking lot for the neighboring regional hospital.