The City of Prague has prevailed in a lawsuit with Delta center, a. s. before the Prague 7 District Court.The court ruled that the company must clear the Holešovice Marketplace within thirty days after the verdict becomes effective and pay outstanding rent of 246 million CZK to the city. The verdict has not become effective yet and the defendant may appeal to the Municipal Court in Prague. In such case, Prague would carry on with the dispute which has been dragging on since 2012 and which the city expects to win.

The Holešovice Marketplace was built between 1893 and 1895 and is officially recognized as a cultural monument. “Today, the site with Art Nouveau and neo-renaissance elements is associated primarily with trinket stalls and a brothel. The reason is simple: politicians took the marketplace from Prague citizens and rented it to a private company without any guarantees. We are set to return the site to the city and turn it into a facility that we know from other European cities. The Holešovice Marketplace is going to become a modern commercial, cultural, gastronomic and leisure center,”says Deputy Mayor Pavel Vyhnánek.

The legal dispute in which the City of Prague sues Delta Center, a.s., has been going on since 2012 and has effectively paralyzed further development of the marketplace. The initial decision to rent the marketplace to a company name Delta Climatizer for 50 years was adopted by the then City Council in 1995. Ten years ago, there were rumors that the site would turn into an estate with up to eight-storey residential buildings. The City Hall then asked the Ministry of Culture to remove the site from the list of cultural monuments. The Ministry of Culture declined the request. Just three months after the negative decision, Delta Climatizer changed ownership and its Israeli investors renamed it to Delta Center.

The lessee was supposed to invest in the site but failed to deliver on the commitment. Yet the company used to offset the value of fictitious investments against the rent. That is why the city terminated the lease agreement and demanded that the lessee pay the outstanding rent and immediately clear the entire site. The lessee refused to accept the termination and declined to pay the outstanding rent. The dispute resulted in the lawsuit. The responsible judge at the Prague 7 District Court kept protracting the process for years, bringing it to a stalemate.

In the meantime, Delta Center sub-lessees led by Showpark, the biggest brothel in Prague, refused to negotiate with the city and vacate the site. As a result, some of the current sub-lessees have agreements with the city and pay the rent to the city coffers, others have lease agreements with Delta Center and pay the rent to judicial custody. Today's verdict paves the way for Prague to physically remove disgraceful entities from the marketplace and turn it into a place that Prague citizens and visitors will like to frequent for a great shopping, cultural and gastronomic experience.