The regional council wants to support the planned construction of a multifunctional hall in Olomouc

Olomouc - The Olomouc Region wants to support the project for the construction of a multifunctional hall in Olomouc, which the company Nová Velkomoravská from the development group Redstone plans to build for more than two billion crowns near the city center. The proposal for a memorandum of cooperation with Nová Velkomoravská was approved by the regional councilors, and it will be discussed by the council next Monday. The governor Ladislav Okleštěk (ANO) informed journalists about this today. According to a previous estimate by Redstone, the Olomouc city hall together with the regional authority should financially contribute several tens of millions of crowns annually to the operation of the hall for 30 years.

"We were approached by Nová Velkomoravská to see if we would join this project. We found it to be very important because Olomouc has long lacked a quality multifunctional hall, which this city and region undoubtedly deserve. Every regional city has a similar hall, and if not, they are already working on it," stated Okleštěk. The regional authority will base its further decisions on the support of the multifunctional hall's construction on a market analysis, financial plan, operational model, and its financing. "After the council, we will now request to proceed with the memorandum and support the construction of the project," said the governor.

The costs for the planned construction of the multifunctional hall have increased by a quarter of a billion crowns from the original estimate of 1.85 billion crowns to last year's estimated 2.1 billion crowns. The investor has also raised its request for an annual contribution that Olomouc is supposed to send for 30 years. In 2022, it amounted to 36.9 million and last year 43.7 million crowns annually. Another 7.3 million crowns should be sent to the hall by the regional authority each year. According to Okleštěk, local governments could contribute, for example, to paying interest on a loan that Redstone will take out for the construction of the hall. "It will definitely not be (the contributions of local governments) a small amount, because today such a hall costs units of billions of crowns. However, we believe that it is desperately needed here, and if we don't start moving now, we will never have anything," he said.

The Olomouc council approved a memorandum of cooperation with Redstone last year, the continuation of preliminary market consultations, and the preparation of documents for the notification of public support to the European Commission. The regional council will discuss the proposal for the memorandum shortly after the company Newton Business Development completed a market analysis of the multifunctional hall for the city hall in Olomouc. The Olomouc councilors have already approved the discussion of the analysis with the Office for the Protection of Competition.

The multifunctional hall is part of the planned district of Nová Velkomoravská. The project was prepared by the Redstone group, which is led by entrepreneur Richard Morávek. The hall is to host fifty sports events annually, including 26 hockey matches. The hockey club HC Olomouc wants to use the hall. The plan also includes 24 cultural and four social events. The basement of the hall is designed to have 1,184 parking spaces. The city has been negotiating with Redstone about the construction and operation of the hall for a longer time. The city has not succeeded in bringing to life its own hall project, which it wanted to build on the site of the long-standing ice rink.