AUGUST 2020
The city is offering for sale an atractive plot located in urban heritage zone
Ostrava is offering for sale a plot of land located in the city centre, on the corner of Švabinského St. and Porážková St., within the Moravská Ostrava urban heritage zone. Covering an area of 579 m2, the land offers easy transport access, and is located close to public transport infrastructure as well as other civic amenities.
The land is suitable for a wide range of uses: a residential complex, shops, services, offices, catering and hospitality facilities, science and technology institutions, health care and other developments.
No deadline has been set for the submission of offers. Ostrava City Assembly has reserved the right to cancel the sale at any time or to decide on the sale of the plot. Interested parties should present their investment plans and submit a bid for the purchase price.
Detailed information on the plot is published at www.land.ostrava.cz.
Work continues on Ostrava's concert hall, which will have a very light envitomental footprint
Eco-friendly, featuring timeless design and packed with the latest technologies – that’s why the prestigious Architizer magazine recently ranked Ostrava’s planned new concert hall among the top 10 most interesting architectural projects in the world today. New York-based Steven Holl Architects – working in conjunction with Prague studio Architecture Acts – have now completed the project study for the new hall.
The building’s features will include high-quality maple wood and low-energy glass surfaces. The new hall will incorporate numerous eco-friendly solutions, underlining the exceptional and unique quality of the design. It will feature low-emissions insulating glass surfaces, recycled (and recyclable) materials, and a flagship energy management concept for both cooling and heating. The designers have outlined several potential variations using heat pumps as part of closed or open systems. Thanks to their low operating costs, these systems offer an excellent return on investment – just a few years.
Despite the recent restrictions that have affected community life and work in many fields, the project study for the new concert hall is now complete – including both the new structure and the reconstruction of the existing cultural centre (which is a legally protected historic building).
Ostrava defends its Aa3/stable credit rating – the highest possible in the country
Moody´s, the international rating agency, confirmed Ostrava’s historically highest Aa3/stable credit rating. Ostrava has once again received the highest possible score, identical to the rating of the Czech Republic. No city, region or other domestic entity can obtain a higher rating than the rating of its country.
Moody´s awarded this score to Ostrava based on a detailed examination of the city’s finances for the past year, its current financial situation and the financial outlook, taking into account the environmental, societal (especially in connection with the coronavirus pandemic) and government-related risks.
The updated rating already takes into account the city’s intention to take out a new long-term investment loan of CZK 1.8 billion to accelerate its strategic investments; this puts us in a great position to obtain very competitive offers from financial institutions.
Ostrava is taking steps to combat “visual smog”
The phrase “visual smog” refers to any form of tasteless, inappropriate (and often illegal) advertising and promotional signage in public spaces. Ostrava is taking steps to combat visual smog as part of its efforts to cultivate public spaces, and the City has devised the project OSTRAVA 360° – high-quality outdoor advertising from all angles.
The City of Ostrava is setting a good example and starting with its own institutions. A substantial change can be seen at the City of Ostrava Cultural Centre, where unsightly banners formerly covering the windows have now been taken down, and advertising hoardings have been removed from the spaces between the main entrance doorways. One billboard has been removed from the area outside the entrance, as have a number of advertising boards between the adjacent tram stop and the park.
The individual municipal districts are also working to remove visual smog – including Ostrava-Jih and Poruba, where inappropriate advertising (stickers or banners) has been removed from benches and litter bins. A major step forward is the revision of contractual terms and conditions for tenants in premises owned by the municipal districts; this gives the districts direct control over the appearance of the advertising and signage displayed by these businesses.
Last year, the City published its manual for the placement of advertising, which provides detailed instructions on precisely how to design and position outdoor advertising.
Source (in Czech)
What impact has the Nová Karolina shopping mall had on the development of Ostrava’s city centre?
A research team from the Faculty of Science at the University of Ostrava has studied the impact of the Forum Nová Karolina shopping mall on the development of Ostrava’s historic city centre. The study has been published in the prestigious journal Cities.
Forum Nová Karolina is the largest retail and entertainment centre in the Czech Republic. It was opened to the public on 22 March 2012. Besides the mall itself, the Nová Karolina development also includes a new apartment complex and a major new office centre, Nova Karolina Park.
The research study identified several positive impacts of the new mall: it has relieved pressure on the city centre’s capacity by freeing up space, reduced rental costs of commercial premises, and opened up new activities which would not otherwise have taken place in the city centre. Central Ostrava now plays a major role in the city’s labour market, with an estimated 20 000 jobs linked to services located in the city centre.
The complete study has been made available to the City of Ostrava, which will use the analyses in its future planning and decision-making.
Source (in Czech)
MSIC financial conference
The Moravian-Silesian Innovation Centre Ostrava is holding a financial conference on 23 September 2020, addressing the topic Financial management as tool for competitive advantage in SMEs. The conference is being organized in conjunction with the financial management consultants HODINOVÝ FINANČNÍ ŘEDITEL. The speakers will include important figures from finance, economics and management, both from financial institutions and other major companies operating on the Czech market.
The aim of the conference is to offer participants recommendations on how to be more aware of financial management and company finance. The conference is being held in response to a survey which showed that companies often lack quite basic knowledge of financial management. The event will include case studies, panel discussions and a networking forum.
The conference will be held in Czech.
For more information see the conference website.
Fly from Ostrava to London – and now to Warsaw too
On 2 July, regular scheduled flights from Leoš Janáček Airport Ostrava to London resumed after a suspension caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The flights are operated by Ryanair, and currently depart twice a week (Thursdays and Saturdays). When the situation returns to normal, Ryanair plans to revert to the full original schedule.
There is more good news in the form of a new service from Ostrava to Warsaw. This service was originally scheduled to start at the end of March 2020, but it was postponed until October due to the COVID-19 situation. Passengers will be able to fly from Ostrava to the Polish capital from 25 October, and there will be 10 flights per week. With this easy connection to a major international hub, passengers from Ostrava will be able to access 111 new destinations all over the world.
Other news
Five more projects will enhance public space in Ostrava
The City of Ostrava supports active citizens who come up with bright ideas for how to revitalize and enhance public spaces in the city while involving local communities in projects. The subsidy programme Fajnovy prostor (Great Urban Spaces) has been allocated up to 500 000 CZK to fund selected projects.
The programme has recently supported 5 new projects: a new gazebo in Stará Bělá, the renovation of a children’s play area in Hrušov, the addition of new benches and other outdoor features at the Pod Bedřiškou ponds in Nová Ves, the renovation of a children’s playground at Stanislavského St. in Svinov, and the creation of a community composting centre in Svinov.
The programme is available to support projects of all sizes, from large to small, encouraging citizens to play an active role in community life and help create urban space together.
Source (in Czech)
Scientists from the University of Ostrava are working on a major research project to find a cure for cancer
Michal Šimíček has returned to his native Ostrava after a period spent working at Cambridge University. He has set up an innovative lab for the Blood Cancer Research Group at the University of Ostrava’s Medical Faculty. Šimíček is currently working with Juli Rodriguez Bago on a research project which will reduce the cost of a new form of cancer treatment, cell therapy – making it more accessible to a wider range of people.
Šimíček appreciates the excellent facilities that are available to the team in Ostrava: “I see the greatest potential in the interconnections between the clinic – the University Hospital in Poruba – and us scientists in the research team. In all my career, I’ve never before seen a research centre that is so closely integrated into clinical practice. Previously, it has always been about us, the scientists in the lab, and the doctors somewhere else, far away from us. But here I’m in daily contact with doctors who are treating patients, yet who are also passionately interested in research.”
Michal Šimíček also appreciates the flexibility of the working environment: “Here there’s none of the rigidity that you tend to get with big institutions, where you usually need to tread a very well-defined path. The huge amount of freedom we have in our research here is precisely what attracted me back to Ostrava – and it’s also enabled us to recruit top-class researchers from all over the world.”
For more information about the research, see this interview with Michal Šimíček (in Czech).
Source: university magazine Universitas, photograph: Marcello Turi
