Penta completes work on two buildings near Masaryk railway station for CZK 2.5 billion

Penta Real Estate has completed work on two buildings near Prague's Masaryk railway station. The last part of the golden facade worth CZK 500 million was unveiled yesterday by representatives of the company headed by Penta co-owner Marek Dospiva. The construction of the buildings lasted over two and a half years and started in March 2021. The total investment amounted to CZK 2.5 billion. The company will invest more money in the planned track re-roofing, which, according to Penta representatives, could start construction at the end of March next year; the Railway Administration is now looking for a contractor in a tender.

Dospiva said the golden facade took 2.5 years to prepare and cost CZK 500 million. "It's an extraordinary thing, the completion of an iconic element of this building by Zaha Hadid," he said outside the building yesterday.

The nine-storey building is 95 per cent full, according to Penta Real Estate spokesman Martin Lansky. The total area is 28,000 square metres. In addition to offices, which take up three-quarters of the space, there are restaurants, cafes and services.

According to Penta Real Estate's development director Rudolf Vacko, the facade was designed by Sipral since 2019. "There are over 3,000 facade modules. When we moved to the final phase at the beginning of 2021, we knew that we would not be able to make do with ordinary construction engineering. We had to turn to the automotive segment," said Vacek, adding that the building facade required precision to tenths of a millimetre. The company is preparing a terrace for the public on the roof of the buildings, which will be accessible by a separate elevator.

Construction work on the roofing of the Masaryk Station tracks should begin at the end of the first quarter of next year, with construction expected to take over two years. "Then we are also waiting to see what will happen further towards Florence. Zaha Hadid's original designs included spaces leading further towards the bus station. There we are waiting for a change in the zoning plan," Lánský said.

The Penta Group, through Penta Real Estate, bought ČSAD Praha Holding, which owns the Florenc bus station and adjacent land. The merger is now being assessed by the Office for the Protection of Competition (ÚOHS), which announced the merger on its website. The antitrust authority is assessing the transaction in a so-called simplified procedure, and will issue a decision within 20 days. The companies did not disclose the price of the transaction. In the past, the Penta group wanted to buy the land of ČSAD Praha Holding, which is adjacent to the station. However, ČSAD announced in 2016 that it would build its own project on the land.

Penta presented an urban planning study for the development of a large brownfield site near Masaryk Station by Zaha Hadid Architects in May 2016. After initial positive feedback, the study became the subject of a fierce social debate. Last year, Penta and ČSAD Praha Holding, with the support of the Prague Institute of Planning and Development, launched a new urban planning competition for a part of the land near the Florenc bus station. In total, Penta is investing CZK 10 billion in projects around the station.

Source: Penta Real Estate and CTK