Rohan island will be divided by big developers. Sekyra Group and J&T are buying land.

The J&T Group has been a co-owner of the Rohan Consortium for some time, the main figure of which is the aforementioned Sekyra.In 2008, the Consortium won the tender of the capital city for the developer of Rohan Island and gained access to large plots of land. The partners are now carving up the plots among themselves.J&T bought two hectares of land near the Libeň Bridge from the consortium for its projects. It plans to buy another two hectares in the coming years.

"On these four hectares we plan to build a total of 147,000 square metres of gross floor area of flats, offices, shops, services and amenities in several stages,"

describes Dušan Palcr, Chairman of the Board of J&T Real Estate. Specifically, houses with a thousand flats and five multifunctional buildings will be built on the site along Rohanský nábřeží. J&T will invest an estimated CZK 15 billion in the development, which it plans to start in the second half of next year. Sekyra plans to invest a similar amount in the transformation of its part.

The territory of Rohan Island is notionally divided into the eastern part, where J&T will build a project called Nový Rohan, and the western part, where Sekyra Group is already completing the first apartment buildings of the Rohan City project. In the centre of the site, a new school will be built, which will be acquired by Prague 8. A new metropolitan park will be created in the neighbourhood of the projects on a 56-hectare area. In total, both developers will build a district where thousands of people will live and work.

The consortium will buy the land on Rohanský ostrov from Prague gradually. Most recently, Sekyra concluded two purchase agreements with the Prague City Hall in June this year for the land purchase worth hundreds of millions of crowns. According to the original contracts from 2008, Prague was supposed to collect around CZK 1.7 billion for the plots. At that time, the price per square metre was set at CZK 8,567. However, the purchase price is increased by the inflation index when each additional part is sold. Currently, the amount exceeds CZK 20,000 per square metre. Thus, the capital city will receive significantly more for the entire area than originally expected.

Until the first half of the last century, Rohanský ostrov was a riverbed that was later filled in. The territory is thus an island in name only. For many years it was a black dump, and at the time of the construction of the underground it served as a repository for material from excavations. In 1999, extensive clean-up work began with a view to revitalising the whole area. This is only now, twenty years later.

The developer J&T Real Estate has completed most of its projects in Karlín. In 2019, it completed the Rustonka office complex here, a year later it completed the new headquarters of J&T Bank near the Invalidovna metro station, and this year it approved the Red Court office building on the site. The next project in the immediate vicinity will be Nový Rohan.

As part of the first phase, J&T Real Estate will build three residential buildings designed by Unit architects and Kaama with a total of 258 apartments, which will always include balconies or terraces. In this phase, the developer will also build a trio of office buildings with shops and services. Their architectural form was created by Loxia studio, which also designed the piazzetta in front of the main entrance and created the composition of the public space.

"We put emphasis on making Nový Rohan an architecturally diverse neighbourhood. Historically, that's how the city has always been built,"

describes Jana Mastíková, chief architect of Loxia studio.

"The initial conceptual principle is traditional block construction, but adapted for the 21st century so that the entire district is easily accessible and all apartments have good lighting and views of the green courtyard or the river,"

she remarks.

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Source: E15