They say “reconstruction of sewers”. Prague Savarin. On Václavák, they dug up the entrance to the garages and filled it in again
photo: Source PrahyIN.cz/Excavated ramp on Wenceslas Square
Can you imagine that in the busiest square in the country, behind the sign “reconstruction of sewers” without a contract and the knowledge of the authorities, for a year and a half, there are two several dozens of meters long raids to underground garages? So know that this is exactly what happened in 2018-2019. And it is another incredible story that accompanies the project of the Savarin shopping center, which is to grow on Wenceslas Square and become the “home” of Alfons Mucha’s Slavic epic.
We already know that an influential international holding is behind the construction of the Savarin Center. Therefore, it is probably not surprising that many things are possible around the building near Wenceslas Square. Nevertheless, some stories that accompany the construction are not believed.
“There will be no ramps on Wenceslas Square,” reported by all media in March 2020. At that time, the construction management of the project for the entrance to the underground garage from the lower part of Wenceslas Square was definitively closed with a negative result. It was restored for a completely broken plan in the part adjacent to Na Příkopech boulevard “calm zone”.
But in reality, the ramps had already been built several months before. At the construction site, marked as a “sewage diversion”, about which the relevant officials at the municipality and the Prague 1 town hall even officially said that they have no idea who is building there, because no one has a contract for the construction.
Before the eyes of the people of Prague, behind a metal fence on the most watched square in the country, the gigantic construction of an on-ramp, presented as a sewerage reconstruction, took place in secrecy and camouflage. We’re not kidding.
The story has been unfolding since the last election period, when the zoning decision allowed the construction of access ramps to the Savarin center from Wenceslas Square. It was a decision regarding the “revitalization of the lower part of Wenceslas Square”, i.e. a project paid for from public resources. The connection with the commercial project of Savarin was created by the strange construction of the so-called “construction preparation”, which was contradicted by the architect Anna Vinklárková at the time.
In the Za starou Praha club newsletter 2/2016 from page 9
Against the opinion of the municipal heritage preservation department, which allowed the ramps, the National Heritage Institute and also the Civic Club for Old Prague submitted a request for a review.
The appellate authority was the department of heritage preservation of the Ministry of Culture, which annulled the permit as illegal and materially incorrect. However, the preparation of the revitalization project continued.
The municipality submitted an appeal against the decision of the ministerial department to the ministry to Daniel Herman, who, despite calls from experts, canceled the negative opinion.
The role of the municipality and Prague 1 in the whole project was very strange. Even though their interests were completely different from those of the developer, all three of them acted harmoniously in administrative proceedings and even found common representatives for some of them.
Back to Minister Herman’s intervention. Just ten days after that, on August 21, 2017, a zoning decision was issued that allowed the construction of ramps on Wenceslas Square. In January 2018, a total of three building permits were granted on its basis, which in turn divided the comprehensive revitalization project (according to some pointlessly and purposefully) and the construction of the ramps was allocated separately.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE ENTIRE CASE HERE (FROM PAGE 18)
In 2018, due to doubts about the progress of the construction procedure, a lawsuit was filed with the Municipal Court. In May 2018, he canceled the zoning decision in the matter of the Wenceslas Square ramp and ordered a new zoning procedure.
The magistrate appealed, but the court rejected the cassation complaint with suspensory effect. He specifically stated that if the ramps were physically built, the decision to allow them would be a purely academic statement. That said, pending a final decision, construction of the ramps is to be suspended.
But digging and building continued on Wenceslas Square. A photo published in Vestník za staru Praha shows that in November 2018, the vertical structures of the ramps and the entrance were already concreted and reinforced with temporary spacers.
On the metal fence that surrounded the construction site, the building was marked with a sign “sewerage diversion”. By the end of 2018, during normal operation of the square in front of the Gant store, one of the pair of ramps was completely excavated and concreted, as well as the central part, allowing access to the Savarin building.
At the time, both the Prague 1 City Hall and the municipality were changing the ruling party after the 2018 elections, so the politician had no idea what was going on, and officials from the relevant departments answered questions by saying that the tendering process for the building contractor had not yet been completed and that they actually did not know , who is building on Wenceslas Square!
This is what the “sewerage” construction looked like in November 2018. Photo: Tibor Vansa (published in the Za starou Prahu club newsletter 2/2019, p. 19)
So, from publicly available sources, let’s add that the construction was carried out by the company Metrostav, and the Capital City of Prague was mentioned as the investor coming to the shopping center.
Design and engineering office Ko-Ka s.r.o he even brags about the project on its website and states that “the construction was coordinated with the intention of revitalizing Wenceslas Square in such a way that the construction of new ramps to the underground garages and their encumbrance with sewage would not damage them”. It is said that the reconstruction had to be carried out in a construction pit precisely because of this.
The company no longer mentions that this pit was subsequently bricked up and modified into the shape of a ramp.
The highlight of the camouflage was the news released to the media about the fascinating archaeological discoveries that were to be made during the alleged reconstruction of the sewers.
Construction subsequently took place at the beginning of 2019. In March and April, however, the ramps were filled in and temporarily paved. The “sewage” construction site was subsequently unveiled. But according to the architect Vinklárková this, at first glance, was also a completely bizarre step in the original plan.
In 2021, when Mayor Hřiv ceremoniously launched the project to revitalize the square, some were very surprised at how deep a regular-shaped hole appeared after the removal of the top layer of temporarily laid pavement.
Even before that, in August 2019, the building authority of Prague 1 unexpectedly admitted that during the reconstruction of the sewerage ramps were actually built, which were also completed. This happened in the communication submitted for the initiative to carry out an inspection of the building.
We quote literally: “During the inspection, it was found that with regard to the ordered coordination of the action “Reconstruction of sewers, Wenceslas Square, Prague 1 – Stage I” with the construction permitted by the road special construction authority as part of the action “Revitalization of the lower part of Wenceslas Square, Na Příkopě section – Vodičkova” (traffic building) with the construction object “construction readiness for entrance and exit ramps to underground garages” (builder Hl. Město Praha) was during the completion of the above-ground part above the repaired sewage drain, the construction was further carried out according to the project documentation for the building permit for transport building”.
Translated into normal speech, the official explained: When the hole was already there, we immediately built the ramps there.
It is also clear from his statement that the capital city of Prague is the investor in the construction of garages in the Savarin shopping and office center. How is it possible that taxpayers are building underground garages for a private person?
In the project of the Savarin center, 270 parking spaces in underground garages were originally planned. Of these, 100 were to be available to shops and offices from Savarin, and the remaining 170 were, according to the original promises, to serve the residents of Prague 1, which was supposed to solve the long-term parking problem for city center residents.
The operator of this part of the underground parking lot was to be the city district of Prague 1. It was for this reason that the municipality was led as an investor in the access ramps.
But even though the construction of 170 garage spaces was originally supposed to be the main reason why the leadership of Prague and the city district agreed to the construction of a gigantic shopping center near Václavák, in the end these 170 resident parking spaces were canceled after the construction was definitively rejected in 2020 (then already finished and buried) ramp.
It is in their place that Alfons Mucha’s Slavic Epic is to be placed in the basement of the shopping center. By the way, today the developer Crestyl suggests that we can at least make an underground passage from the mall to the subway out of the already dug and concreted ramps under Václavák.
The cancellation of public parking spaces was the main reason why Prague agreed to the construction. Nevertheless, it is still officially a construction opening on Wenceslas Square of the municipality. Which is, of course, important for the person who will pay for the finished and backfilled building.
According to information that PrahaIN.cz obtained from insiders, the payment for filled ramps is currently a “hot potato” that is being tossed around by all involved.
In the case of a court or arbitration, however, the fact that the capital was an official construction event will probably be a very strong argument.
In that case, the taxpayer would pay for the entire grand event disguised as sewer reconstruction.
Which is quite useful information before the municipal elections.