Construction in Prague

June 3, 2019

Site Visit

We started our day at a construction visit near the Old Town Square. The old building was torn down, and now they are building a mixed use retail and office space. The project originally started 12 years ago, but because of public protest and lots of delays, they are scheduled to finish next May. The 1 billion czech crown project has a really great central location. This has caused problems with sound ordinances, deliveries, and crane operation.

The building has a British owner, but an Irish contractor. There's around 100 workers on site daily working from 8 a.m. - 8 p.m. The representative talked about how it's hard to keep workers. Foreign workers come to Prague looking for jobs, but they want to work constantly. With this project having delays, it was hard to keep workers.

The building has a wavy glass curtain wall which will be constructed by Spiral Glass. The total building is around 3,000 square meters with 21,000 SF of leasing space. One thing I thought was really interesting were the workers were allowed to wear shorts. One of the managers said they allow this because their workers are more comfortable and will work longer days. However, if a worker gets hurt because they are wearing shorts, it is at the worker's risk.

Feeling Like Locals

After the construction visit, we got lunch at a market near our hotel. It looked like an outdoor farmer’s market with a bunch of food and drink booths. The food was really really good.

Horak’s Farm

We ended our day by visiting a memorial in Lidice. During WWII two paratroopers from Lidice left Prague to fight in the British Air Force. Hitler wanted to make an example of them leaving, so he bombed their home town of Lidice. The memorial looked like a big field, but as you walked through it, there were smaller memorials remembering who lost their lives. It was a very somber experience.