Prague 14 Breaks Ground on a CZK 950m School at Jahodnice After Two Stopgaps

Prague 14 and the city hall formally started construction of a new primary school at Jahodnice on 27 August. It will hold 540 pupils, cost CZK 950 million, and stand on U Hostavického potoka. Groundworks begin in the autumn; the first pupils are expected in September 2028.

Third answer to the same problem

What makes this worth recording is not the ribbon but the sequence behind it. The district has been dealing with a shortage of primary school places at Jahodnice for years, and this is its third attempt at a fix.

First it converted a former community centre into a small school for 120 pupils, which opened in 2024. Then it put up a modular school, which opens this September and is planned to last two years. Only now does the permanent building start — and it will not be finished until the modular school is already at the end of its intended life.

Read as one timeline, the three projects are a fairly precise picture of how a district absorbs demographic pressure it cannot fund on its own: a conversion it can pay for, a temporary structure it can erect quickly, and a permanent school it can only build once the city hall is in the room.

Who is paying, and how it is procured

The city bought the land for the district and contributed CZK 350 million towards the building. Zdeněk Kovářík (ODS), the city councillor for finance, said Prague also expects to co-fund at least a large part of the remaining cost — which, on a CZK 950 million project, is the greater share still open.

The contract runs as design and build, with one supplier responsible for both the design and the construction. Metrostav is delivering it for the district. Mária Ševčíková (ANO), deputy mayor of Prague 14, set out the programme and the procurement route:

We are counting on 18 homeroom classes for 540 pupils. The architectural study was completed in mid-2025 and the tender for the construction supplier was launched in September. Building will run in the Design & Build mode, where a single deliverer is responsible for the project and for the construction itself.

— Mária Ševčíková (ANO), deputy mayor of Prague 14

Alongside the classrooms, the school gets a canteen and a food distribution point, a gymnasium, staff facilities and outdoor grounds. It replaces two existing school buildings in the area.

The two buildings it replaces are not being given up

Josef Kutmon (ODS), the district councillor for education, said that once the school is finished in 2028 the district wants to keep both existing buildings in educational use. The larger of the two could become a special nursery or school, he said, because the number of children with special needs is rising.

That is a small but consequential planning decision. A district that has just spent four years improvising classroom capacity is choosing to retain the improvised buildings rather than dispose of them, and to put a use on them that the mainstream stock does not serve.

Na Hutích is next

The district has commissioned a demographic study to plan further school capacity, and Kutmon said it is already clear that another primary school will be needed in the Na Hutích area, where up to 15,000 residents are expected within the next ten years. The district plans to raise that with the city hall.

Prague 14 covers Černý Most, Hloubětín, Hostavice and Kyje in the east of the city and has roughly 47,000 residents. An additional 15,000 people in one part of it, on the figures the district itself is working from, is a third again — which is why the Jahodnice school starting today is unlikely to be the last one this district asks the city to help pay for.