[CPEO-BIF] Area wide BF redevelopment in Czech Republic

["Robert Hersh" <b_hersh@verizon.net>]

Brno bites the bullet and ushers in Zbrojovka brownfield regeneration

Czech Business Weekly
August 13, 2007
by Irena Fuková, 

The decline of the once mighty Czech armaments industry has left an immense 22.5-hectare hole on the edge of downtown Brno, an almost deserted area that residents and entrepreneurs hope will provide a great opportunity in the second city’s regeneration.

...By the 1980s, Zbrojovka Brno, a company that grew into a world-famous producer of rifles and shotguns after setting up in 1919 in an old artillery repair shop from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, once hummed and clanged with the labors of more than 12,000 employees. Production, however, completely ceased last year as the company, having failed to come to terms with post-revolution domestic armaments restructuring, succumbed to bankruptcy.

Nevertheless, having picked up the company site and buildings for Kč 707 million (€ 25.19 million) in February this year—surprising some experts who thought it would go for less than half that price—Czech and Slovak investment company J&T and development company Czech Property Investments Group (CPI Group) are convinced a prosperous phoenix can grow from its ashes in the shape of a retail, service, residential apartment, office and green zone project.

... Oliver Pospíšil, deputy mayor of Brno responsible for the city economy, said the local government was happy somebody was willing to transform the Zbrojovka locality because the city didn’t have the financial resources to undertake it. “It will be a revitalized brownfield in the city center, so this is a big opportunity for Brno to revive this part of town. It could help further development of this locality, which isn’t exactly developing in a good and natural way,” Pospíšil said. Taking into account similar abandoned factory halls and grounds in Brno, Pospíšil calculated the city had more than 400 hectares of brownfield sites. “Some of them are slowly finding owners,” he said.

For the entire article, see:
http://www.cbw.cz/phprs/2007081334.html






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