A Parking Space at Dědina Cost 1.38 Million Crowns

The parking house at Dědina opened on 8 September, on a plot that has been standing ready since the tram from Divoká Šárka reached the estate on 22 October 2023. It has 290 spaces and Technická správa komunikací will run it. The number that will follow the building around, though, is a different one: at a final cost the city puts just under 400 million crowns, each space works out at 1.38 million.

That is close to the record. The P+R garage at Opatov, started last year, comes out at 1.6 million per space. Zdeněk Kovářík, the councillor for finance, said as much at the opening.

We ought to be building more cheaply, and for cars that genuinely have nowhere to park. Four hundred million is a lot of money for so few parking spaces.

— Zdeněk Kovářík, Prague councillor for finance

How 320 became 400

The tendered price for the construction works was 320 million crowns including VAT. Last November city councillors raised the total to 420 million, a figure they said was calculated from the costs of extra works; the original price had been based on 2023 rates. Kovářík now says the final figure will come in under 400 million, because some works were not carried out.

The schedule slipped further than the price. The site was prepared before the tram opened, but was not handed over to the contractors, Subterra and BAK, until June 2024 — more than six months later. A simple three-storey building was to take twelve months. The opening moved first to May 2026, then into September. The city hall attributes the delay to complications in handing over the site and to changes in the project documentation that had to be worked in after construction had already started.

What 290 spaces means in practice

The headline count is a paper figure. Eight spaces are for charging electric cars, with a six-hour limit; another eight are reserved for disabled drivers and for families with prams. The remaining 274 went into several rounds of reservations, first for people living in the immediate neighbourhood, then across Prague 6. Ondřej Matěj Hrubeš, the Prague 6 councillor for transport, says long-term tenants were found for half of them; archiweb.cz reports that over half of all spaces are now reserved.

The building is not in the P+R scheme — TSK offers it for long-term parking only. Zdopravy.cz gives the monthly rent as 2,200 crowns, with businesses paying 400 more; archiweb.cz gives 2,600 crowns including VAT for public parking. Jaromír Beránek, the councillor for transport, told archiweb.cz the city wants the garage 70 to 80 percent occupied for it to make business sense.

The house exists because residents asked for it. It was the price of the parking spaces struck out of Vlastina street when the tram extension was being prepared — archiweb.cz puts the number lost at about a hundred.

The building itself

The design came out of an architectural competition that covered not only the parking structure but the parterre around it and the landscaping. Ivan Kroupa architekti won. What was built is a reinforced concrete frame with three above-ground floors and one partly sunken basement. The roof is partly covered by a pergola that climbing plants are meant to grow over in time, and the walls facing the neighbouring panel block are to be planted too.

There are non-residential units inside, earmarked for a community centre, and a new small square in front of the entrance. Beránek, defending the project at the opening, leaned on that.

There have been a whole series of controversies here from the beginning, but the result is worth it.

— Jaromír Beránek, Prague councillor for transport

Prague is negotiating similar buildings with Prague 12 in Modřany and Prague 17 in Řepy, archiweb.cz reports. The cost per space at Dědina is the number those negotiations will now be held against.