Železná Ruda will demolish the Espressa building and build a square in its place

Železná Ruda - Železná Ruda will begin demolishing the Espresso building, the former café opposite the church, on Thursday, which has long marred the center of the resort town. A new square will be built on the vacant area of the town hall. The building has been standing since the mid-1970s when it was constructed as part of a volunteer action, and has been deteriorating since the 1990s, said Mayor Filip Smola (ČSSD) to ČTK. Until 1989, there was still a café in the building, and then for several years, it housed a market run by Vietnamese vendors.

"It is definitely the biggest blemish on the beauty of Ruda," Smola said about the Espresso. The town will completely demolish the building, fill the site with topsoil, grass it over, and start transforming it into a square next year. "It will be a beautiful public leisure area without a parking lot, with benches, paving, public lighting, and a small fountain," added the mayor. The area of the plot is around 2500 m².

The building belonged to the neighboring hotel, while the land beneath it was owned by the Roads and Highways Directorate (ŘSD). "Thanks to a great deal of cooperation with ŘSD, we managed to transfer it to the Office for Representation of the State in Property Matters," said the mayor. The office then transferred the land to the town partly free of charge and partly in exchange, in which the town received hundreds of thousands of crowns. "We exchanged the building for our hostel, which was in a state of emergency, for which I am glad. And we also received some compensation," Smola stated.

The demolition will take five to seven days. "Afterward, we would immediately start bringing in soil for the future square. We already have a proposal from the architect," pointed out the mayor. The area should be newly modified by mid-2022, in time for the summer tourist season. "Next year, the landscaping will be completely finished, meaning the terraces, and smaller park modifications will be completed in 2022," added Smola.