VIDEO: One step closer to the second Peace. Ostrava plans to sell land for a new theater

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The Mír Theater runs into a problem with the capacity of the auditorium. When this is combined with the ambition of the principal and actor Albert Čuba, who wants to expand theater production, the result can be a dream come true for another theater.

As Deník reported exclusively in the fall of last year and then in more detail in the Ostrava Echo podcast at the beginning of February, Čuba inspected the area of ​​the existing parking lot on Náměstí Jiřího z Poděbrady.

Not only is this another plot of land in Vítkovice, where the Peace Theater already stands, but the two locations are also barely 150 meters apart. In the past few months, the actor has started probing options and tapping politicians and officials, and now he has official support. During March, the Vítkovice council, to which the land is entrusted, agreed to the idea of ​​selling a part of the land with an area of ​​about 50 by 70 meters (over 3,500 square meters), and shortly before Easter the city council also agreed. And that under clearly defined conditions – the construction of a theater. Neither the municipal studio MAPPA nor the relevant unions of the municipality object to this.

The representatives have not sold the land itself for the time being, they just mostly agreed that they are interested in it. Anyone can sign up for the public project, and the land has not yet been priced.

“In order to prevent the loss of parking spaces due to the construction of the theater on Jiřího z Poděbrad Square, it is possible that the statutory city of Ostrava will be an investor in the construction of an underground parking lot under the theater building with a capacity of approximately 100 parking spaces. For this purpose, a contract should be concluded,” the city’s statement of reasons reads.

Are they disposing of the land without a guarantee?

However, not all representatives welcomed the proposed sale as presented. “I understand that the applicant is a theater, very popular in Ostrava. But it is a dangerous precedent. The city should be able to say at the outset which requirements it wants for applicants. We also have to take into account that anyone can sign up for the project. And even if not, it’s standard to set the conditions,” opposition representative Zuzana Bajgarová (Go!!!) disagrees with the plan, according to which the city is going to get rid of the land without any guarantee of what it will receive.

“Arguments that it is the intention and will be seen in the contract (on the sale, editor’s note) are not an argument. It is the intention that sets what the city expects. And you say you don’t expect anything at all – except that there will be a theater. It’s a plot the size of Nové Laub, not a small piece of land on the outskirts of the city,” Bajgarová elaborated on her disapproval.

According to Lukáš Semerák (Ostravak), Ostrava should appreciate the fact that the first request for the construction of a theater has come in decades. “It will be subject to greater architecture, the city will be involved in the process, it will be able to oversee some aspects of the new building. As far as possible, we should have the ambition to help such God-loving intentions, not to regulate them in advance,” says the politician of the coalition movement. According to Mayor Jan Dohnal (ODS), valuable buildings have been built around the world even without binding conditions.

Halls, studios, studio

Due to the escalating discussion, a proposal to withdraw the item from the discussion was also dropped – unsuccessfully. In the end, the representatives approved the sale plan – 36 of the 49 representatives present spoke in favor. The opposition will probably enforce the condition of an architectural competition in the form of a theater during the sale.

She is not yet known. “In order to have anything to talk about at all, I needed to show them something,” Albert Čuba said of the visualizations that the city already has at its disposal, but which, according to him, are only ideas of the built-up area, not the expected form of the planned theater.

What is to be performed in the theater with the working name “Peace II”? “At Mír, we taught people to go to comedies, but it would be good to occasionally show classics or some drama as well. But we are talking about larger theater units with larger casts, which require higher costs and therefore profits. So the plan is that Mír would remain and would continue to be focused on comedy, while ‘Mír II’ would be intended for larger theater ensembles,” explained Čuba to Deník, who would like to conceive of the new theater as a larger creative center, which would include halls, studios or smaller studios, which could generate additional profit at the same time.