The reconstruction of the winter stadium in Zlín could be completed in two seasons

If everything goes well, in two hockey seasons, a multi-functional stadium can be built in Zlín, where it will (finally) be a joy to play hockey.

"It is at least a regional project that will bring a multi-functional hall to the region, in which cultural and social events, or other sports, could be held, which otherwise could not be held in the Zlín region and citizens would have to travel elsewhere for them. But whether we are hockey fans or not, we have to keep our feet on the ground and we have to solve the development of Zlín in general and not just one-sidedly," says Zlín mayor Jiří Korec in an interview with Deník.

What is new in the preparations for the reconstruction of the Luďka Čajka Winter Stadium in Zlín?

At the end of August, the Zlín City Council (RMZ) approved a loan of 500 million crowns for the city of Zlín for the purpose of reconstructing the winter stadium. However, this decision is not final, because the Zlín City Council (ZMZ) has yet to decide on the loan and other financial matters. However, this item will not be presented at its September meeting. At ZMZ, we want to present comprehensive documents for this event, therefore we expect that a decision on the reconstruction of the Luďko Čajka Winter Stadium will only be made at the October meeting of the council, with the fact that its members will have presented all the existing - three variants in connection with the reconstruction of the winter stadium .

So what variants will it be?

It is either the reconstruction itself or the repair of the current state of the winter stadium, the third option is - very generally: the construction of a new winter stadium on a green field. When choosing this variant, however, the second variant would also have to be taken into account, i.e. the repair of the existing condition of the Luďka Čajka stadium.

What happens if the council does not approve a loan for the city of Zlín and thus does not actually approve the reconstruction?

If the council does not approve the loan, the city of Zlín will not take the loan, or he will not take it for the reconstruction of the winter stadium, or certainly not in such an amount. It is then a question regarding the credit burden of the city of Zlín, if we do not simply evaluate that we have a lot of strategic projects prepared that make sense. The City of Zlín would thus "keep" the loan, precisely for the purpose of financing other strategic buildings. We'll see how the Zlín council decides.

It also depends on what the conditions will be, which means that the price for the reconstruction will also be presented at the ZMZ, which will be contested during the tender process. This is currently already underway. So we assume that we will have all the information on the table at the October ZMZ. And that's also because the National Sports Agency (NSA) is supposed to evaluate submitted applications during September.

What amount of subsidy does the city of Zlín expect from the NSA?

At the National Sports Agency, we have the ambition to obtain the maximum possible amount of subsidy, which is 300 million crowns. We'll see if we can do it. It will be up to the NSA evaluation committee, and we also have to say flatly that they have a reduced allocation against the original plans. Their total allocation in this call is 900 million crowns. So it remains to be seen how many projects apply and what their requirements are and how they will be evaluated. We submitted the request last week on Monday. We made it to the deadline, including the building permit, including all the requirements, including supporting support from the region. That's why we expect the maximum point rating and we'll see how the agency approaches it.

So the external financing of the whole project is now one more big unknown?

We want to resolve the unknowns by the time of the October council meeting, or until the council meeting that will deal with this point. That is why we want to know the entire amount of external financing by then. That means the county and the NSA. Or possibly some other sources that we don't see yet. At the same time, we want to have a competitive price, so that we know how much the reconstruction will realistically cost. Well, then we will decide whether the additional financing of the reconstruction is within the city's power or not.

How much will the Zlín region contribute to the event?

Last week, the region decided on the allocation of 70 million crowns, with the fact that we have tentatively agreed at the level of the mayor-hetman that we will see how things will develop further. This means that if we were to talk about an increase in the tens of millions of crowns, the region is open to opening this debate. But this is precisely about putting all the documents on the table and seeing if we can fit into the price that we have approved by the resolution of the council. Or we can't fit it for tens of millions, or we can't fit it for hundreds of millions of crowns. So at that point it will be a matter of further negotiations.

Can we recap how much investment-reconstruction of the Luďka Čajka Winter Stadium in Zlín is involved and how will the financing of this event be composed?

It is difficult to say how much it will cost given the current situation on the construction market. ZMZ has approved a resolution that the reconstruction of the Luďka Čajka Winter Stadium should cost 959 million crowns including VAT. The financing of this amount consists of: 400 million crowns of external financing and 559 million crowns from the resources of the city of Zlín.

Of course, it is a question whether the reconstruction will be able to be tendered for this price, because it is almost 20 percent lower than the current budget price. And of course, we all know what happens in the construction industry, so we are a little bit in anticipation of what price will "land" in our envelope during the tendering process for the contractor of the event. That's why I say, let's see how the council decides, because it will probably be very complicated. There are a lot of unknowns at the moment: from the amount of external financing, to the very competitive price of the reconstruction. In addition, to this day we still do not know the price for a simple repair in order to "keep" the winter stadium still operational. So we have to put these things "on the table" and whether we are hockey fans or not, we have to keep our feet on the ground and we have to solve the development of Zlín in general and not just unilaterally.

What are the plans for financing the reconstruction of the winter stadium?

This is how it is given: the region 70 million crowns, the NSA 300 million and the city of Zlín 559 million crowns.

This means that as of today, I can say that if it is not possible to secure another external source in the amount of 30 million crowns, then it will not be possible to comply with the resolution of the council that we have with the condition of 400 million crowns of external funding, (because the region now says 70 and the NSA says a maximum of 300). Our discussions with the region at the beginning were that it would contribute 50 million crowns, then we talked about the range of 50-200 million crowns.

However, it is important for us that the region issued a resolution on the allocation of a financial resource in such a time that we were able to attach this resolution to the NSA application, thanks to which we will gain additional points and thus have the ambition to obtain the maximum allocation for one request, in the amount of 300 million crowns. In the event that we miss something, the region has declared that it is willing to keep having fun, because even in the region they perceive that the reconstruction of the Luďka Čajka Winter Stadium does not mean only building something for Zlín. It is really at least a regional project that will bring a multi-functional hall to the region, in which cultural and social events can be held, or other sports, which otherwise could not be held in the Zlín region and citizens would have to travel elsewhere for them. On the other hand, both the region and the city of Zlín must remain sober in terms of financing, and we cannot go headlong into one project and not see the consequences that it will limit investments elsewhere.

So it could happen that the city of Zlín invests half a billion in investments other than the planned reconstruction of the winter stadium?

We haven't discussed this at all at the council yet. At the present moment, we know that we counted on the sum of 500 million crowns for the reconstruction of the winter stadium. On the other hand, we will have to evaluate whether, at the current time, when the credit conditions for the city are not bad, we would not take the loan for other projects that we have.

At the moment, we have an approved loan of 500 million crowns precisely for these strategic buildings, so it will be a question for the council and the council whether it makes sense to now borrow more from the city of Zlín, or rather to increase the 500 million that we have for strategic they took the buildings. For me, it will depend on what stage of preparation the individual projects are in, because artificially putting the city of Zlín in debt makes no sense to me.

Therefore, the reconstruction of the winter stadium in Zlín may not take place at all?

If the council does not approve the reconstruction of the winter stadium in October, it does not mean for me that it will never be done. It will be a decision at a given time and given conditions, offers and conditions of external financing. However, it is not excluded that, for example, this complete plan will appear on the table here again next year, which will again depend on external financing and also the contractor's price offer.

We cannot unnecessarily put the city of Zlín in debt because of one project. There are other sports here, we have a lot of things in culture, more and more strategic buildings, and of course we have to take care of the maintenance of the city and a lot of other things, and at the expense of the winter stadium, we cannot not do these standard things and stop the development of the city in other areas.

Wouldn't it be better (cheaper) in such a situation to strive for the construction of a new winter stadium "on the green field"? After all, is the land being offered, which the previous regional administration bought for the construction of a new hospital in Malenovice, and the current one swept this investment off the table?

We already considered at the beginning of the whole project whether to go for reconstruction or to go for the construction of a new winter stadium on a green field. Even then, it was assessed that the construction of a new stadium would be much more expensive than the reconstruction of the existing one. So one thing was finance and it still remains. It means that although the reconstruction is more expensive than we expected, it still turns out better than the construction of a new winter stadium. Already because of networks and the necessary infrastructure and the price of land.

But if the region provided land in Malenovice, the construction of a new stadium would be cheaper, and the region could participate in the construction of a new hockey stand in Zlín.

Of course, I hear about the location in Malenovice repeatedly. However, I think that, first of all, the region must deal with the individual owners, or with contracts that were concluded by the previous leadership of the region. This site offers itself in many ways, but also for many other functions. That's more of a regional question. For myself, I think that it is one thing to find a location, but the second and more important thing is to find financing for the entire construction. We are currently negotiating external financing for the reconstruction, and therefore we are dealing with the reconstruction of the existing winter stadium, which is already more or less becoming the construction of a new winter stadium due to the scope of the work. With this reconstruction, we will solve the object of the Luďka Čajka stadium, which we would have to solve anyway, even if we built a new stadium elsewhere. The entire reconstruction will create a sports hockey complex. This means facilities from youth to adults and for the public. So it gives us logic. And as for Malenovic, as I say, it would cost more money, and the city of Zlín would have to find even more external resources.

Okay, so if everything goes smoothly and according to plan, when can the city of Zlín and the region see the newly reconstructed winter stadium?

If everything goes smoothly, the construction must start this calendar year, with the fact that this hockey season will take place at the Luďka Čajka Winter Stadium in Zlín and the next season would be played elsewhere. We have negotiated Přerov for this possible need. After the exile season, we would have already returned to the reconstructed Luďka Čajka stadium in Zlín. The construction would thus last two hockey seasons.