From the building of the World of Cars in Ostrava, there is to be a Vietnamese department store

Ostrava - One of the most interesting buildings in Ostrava, the former World of Cars in Ostrava-Hrabová, which finished second in the House of the Year competition in 1999, may come back to life. The building, which has been deteriorating for several years, is to be repurposed for the establishment of a department store AU-Viet by Vietnamese traders operating in the Czech Republic. The building underwent an expensive reconstruction. This is reported by today's Moravian-Silesian supplement of Mladá fronta Dnes (MfD).
    "Not everything is agreed upon yet, but we would like to open a department store in Ostrava with 20,000 square meters of retail space," said Pham Si Van to the newspaper.
    However, there is a problem with his claim, the newspaper points out. The former World of Cars only has around 6,000 square meters of usable space, according to the current manager. The Vietnamese did not want to provide any further details about a potential opening date. "We are choosing a suitable time that would help attract customers," he told the newspaper.
    The fate of the World of Cars has been in the hands of judges for several years. It was unclear who owned it. The original owner, the company IR Investorská, a subsidiary of the Czech-Moravian Cooperative Savings Bank controlled by Petr Bezruč, sold the World of Cars in November 2000 to Jaroslava Votavová, who was to pay 97.5 million crowns for it. However, the money was never found.
    After disputes, the building was included in the bankruptcy estate of the Czech-Moravian Cooperative Savings Bank, and Votavová sold it in July 2005 to the Prague real estate company Victus Praga, which paid only 5.7 million crowns to an account controlled by the bankruptcy administrator after the liquidated savings bank, the newspaper writes.
    The Ostrava real estate company RK Victoria is currently cooperating with Victus Praga, looking for new tenants for the glazed building near Ostrava's Makro. "We want to turn the former World of Cars into a department store," said Petr Štolba, managing director of RK Victoria. According to him, no specific contract has yet been signed, but talks with the group of Vietnamese traders are at an advanced stage. If this contract does not materialize, Štolba intends to negotiate with other interested parties about renting retail space.