News

Newsletter #11

Despite the fact that there are new construction sites opening up all over Prague – we cannot be the only people that have been driven mad during this last summer by the road closures and disruption caused by so many different large-scale building sites slowing down the traffic! – the media are continuing to talk about the lack of quality residential property in Prague, in particular, and the need for more hotels to house the increasing number of visitors to the city.

Those of us from the area of real estate, in particular us architects and our clients, cannot be surprised by this at all. The time that it is taking to get permits for new builds or reconstructions through continues to be a huge issue. Our own firm is working on plans for hundreds (if not more) of residential apartments and houses but it still remains a question when we will start construction. All we can hope for is that the relationship between the lack of property and the length of time that permitting takes to be noticed at the highest level and some changes will start to be made.

Despite this, and the issues that we are dealing with for some of our projects, the GeddesKanka team continues to be busy and thriving, and we are pleased to be able to report that we do have several projects that are about to start construction rather sooner than later. Let’s just hope that this long and incredible summer continues for as long as possible so that we don’t get stopped in mid-flow by the weather! Wishing you all a warm autumn,

Tomas Kanka

Projects Whilst many of our projects are still in the preparation for permitting stages, particularly the large-scale developments that continue to require amendments and additions, we are pleased that we have been able to devote a lot of time during the summer in finalising the paperwork for a number of different projects that are now nearing completion.

These include:

  • We finished the documentation for a joint zoning permit and building permit for a mid-sized residential block in the neighbourhood of the 02 arena – this is clearly one of the latest up and coming areas of Prague, with several new and large residential developments starting at the same time.
  • We have started the DOSS statements circulation for the joint zoning permit and building permit for a reconstruction and attic extension of a large-scale residential building in Plzen.
  • We have completed the concept for another private “village type” villa in the surrounding area of the Okoř castle ruin.

News Our long-term aim at GeddesKanka is to offer a complete service for developers and investors, whereby we can assist from the preparatory stage up to its final completion. We are delighted to announce the latest addition to our team, Ondrej Steger, who joined us on lst August, 2018 and who is a qualified civil engineer. His appointment means, therefore, that we are able to provide a wider range of construction projects and technical and civil engineering know-how to our clients.

Ondrej (39) qualified as a civil engineer having studied at the CTU in Prague, Faculty of Civil Engineering between 1999 and 2005. He then continued his education at the same university, qualifying with a PhD in economics and construction management in 2010.

After his studies, he gained extensive work experience at various different architectural firms, with a particular focus on residential buildings. During the period 2005 to 2009 these included the reconstruction of the U Dubu villa in Prague, the construction of a complex of apartment buildings in Slatinka and, between 2012 and 2018 the new construction of residential blocks known as ‘Na Lysinach’ and ‘Bieblova’, both in Prague.

Between 2009 and 2012 Ondrej worked for Skoda Praha Invest as a designer of industrial buildings responsible for all project documentation phases including construction supervision. His projects included the designing of operational buildings at the Ledvice coal power plant and the construction supervision at the Počerady steam-gas power plant.

Geddes Architects in the UK A bit of sunshine amidst the Brexit gloom!

Geddes Architects is pleased to be able to announce that another of the projects on the Mira Technology Park, on which it is the architects, has been completed. The Mira Technology Institute is the seventh completed building on the Park in the last six years, and it is now welcoming its first students.

The rapidly growing Mira Technology Park is located near Nuneaton, in the United Kingdom, and is an innovative education facility for automotive related research. Established in a cooperation between Horiba Mira, North Warwickshire and Hinkley College, the University of Leicester, University of Loughborough and the University of Coventry, the Mira Technology Institute will take full advantage of its location amongst Mira’s extensive world-class research and testing facilities.

Geddes Architects, is the lead architect for the Technology Park, and is also the architect for the Institute.

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Newsletter #10

Spring is slowly on its way, but the GeddesKaňka office has been full of life right from the beginning of the year! A lot of work on current projects, such as the historic Grand Hotel Europa on Wenceslas Square and a new residential building located in Libeň, Prague, as well as discussions with several interesting potential clients, have meant that our team has had very little time to take a break. For this reason, we are planning to slowly expand our office so that we can continue to meet the demands from clients, which is, of course, a good concern to have. In this newsletter, we introduce our first new team member, and hopefully it wont be long before we introduce another one!

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Newsletter #9

I think that everyone involved in real estate knows how difficult it is to get a construction project through to completion, and it has been interesting to see how much the media have been talking about this subject over the past few months; particularly the slowness of the authorities in agreeing on permits and so on. As architects, we know this more than most, since it is probably one of the most difficult aspects of our job.

Despite this, as we move towards the end of the year, we are happy to report that some of our bigger projects are now moving at a reasonable speed, and a couple of them that had slowed down for a while are beginning to move again. Our large-residential project in Plzen is taking shape, the huge Zlaty Lihovar development in Prague 5 is moving and we have just been appointed on a fantastic new project that is already making the headlines; the redevelopment of the famous Hotel Evropa on Wenceslas Square.

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Newsletter #8

The summer is slowly coming to an end, but if you have been as busy as all of us at GeddesKaňka have over the past few months, I guess you will be wondering where it has gone! We have managed to finalise two of our existing projects, but we didn’t really have much time to say goodbye to either of them as some of the others have started to move, plus we have been pitching for a few interesting new pieces of work; as usual, it is difficult to say too much about those, but read on to find out about some of them.

I have tried to get onto the golf course as well, but having also moved house during this period, my spare time has been limited. I do plan to continue to take part in the ‚Development Tour‘ though, and hope to see one or two of you at the next tournament in September.

Looking forward to meeting you as we head into autumn,

Tomáš Kaňka

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Contact

Kaňka + Partners s.r.o.
Radlická 3301/68
150 00 Praha 5 – Smíchov
Czech Republic

info@kankapartners.com
Tel.: +420 732 303 103