According to the approved document, the purchase price consists of two parts. The value of the building itself is 3.32 billion crowns, and the rest of the amount is made up of other assets of the purchased company. It is preliminarily valued at approximately 222.2 million crowns, the exact amount will be determined by an expert opinion. The transaction is to be completed on July 1 of this year. According to the document, the bank will remain in the building on lease until the end of 2026.
On March 12 this year, KB called for bids to be submitted for the purchase of the building, or the company through which it is owned. Several tenants applied, including the capital city, whose council approved the submission of an offer of up to 3.65 billion crowns in March. Subsequently, the bank's management decided that it would deal only with Prague. In the coming years, the municipality must solve the problem of where to place about 1,200 officials who now work in the rented Škoda Palace.
The five-story neoclassical house on the corner of Wenceslas Square and Štěpánská Square, built in the 1920s, suits the municipality in terms of capacity, which is about a third larger than that of the Škoda Palace. According to the city management, a location in the city center at the intersection of all three metro lines is also suitable. The house has been listed since 1958.
The Prague administration under former mayor Pavel Bém (ODS) moved officials to Jungmannova street. Prague subsequently dealt with the situation surrounding the rent for several years and unsuccessfully sued the original owner of the palace, Copa Retail, over the amount of the rent. The former city management led by Mayor Adriana Krnáčová (ANO) agreed to amend the lease agreement. The 20-year lease was supposed to cost the city 4.4 billion crowns, but in the end it will pay 860 million less. In 2017, the investment company GLL Real Estate Partners, based in Munich, bought the palace.
In the past, the capital also considered other places where it could move officials. In the last year, the management of Prague negotiated the purchase of the main post office building in Jindřišská Street, but no agreement was reached with Česká pošta. Earlier, there was also a plan to build a new building at Na Knížecí, but that also fell through. The administration of the municipality is located in the New Town Hall building on Mariánské náměstí, which is owned by the city.
