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Prague gets its Central Park

CPP Development changing face of Žižkov neighborhood

By Adam Daniel Mezei
For The Prague Post
February 21st, 2007 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
CPPD's Managing Director Milan Ganik calls Central Park Praha project "world-class."
Designer living in luxurious surrounds. Vast lands of greenery nearby. A complete range of full-service amenities, all at the touch of a button. In Prague, you ask?
Well, courtesy of the wildly successful exploits of Prague’s CPP Development’s (CPPD) 4 billion Kč ($184.5 million) Central Park Praha complex, that once-elusive dream lifestyle for the upwardly mobile Prague denizen is dream no longer. Since last summer, CPPD has been effortlessly securing interest in, and multimillion-crown sales of, its hundreds of suite offerings situated in one of the city’s more unlikely places for such a phenomenon: the Žižkov neighborhood.
Central Park Praha forms part of a sprawling 50-hectare (124-acre) strip of territory, which was formerly zoned during communism for the site of a vast indoor soccer arena. Following the 1989 revolution, the city continued contemplating plans to convert the area into a vast sports complex, before scrapping the idea. Eventually, CPPD and its Dutch parent company, Jaccor BV, scooped up the rights to a prime section of it — about 20 hectares’ worth — and drafted clever plans to swiftly build on eight of those.
With a name that pays homage to another grand central park thousands of kilometers on the other side of the Atlantic, Central Park Praha is rapidly evolving into one of Prague’s top residential destinations.
All of this is part and parcel of what the firm’s managing director, Milan Ganik, describes as CPPD’s commitment to “21st-century Czech community living, at a price.” Ganik recently spoke to The Prague Post about Central Park Praha’s unlikely rise to the top of the residential real estate pops and about plans for the site’s remaining 12 hectares as the project approaches completion in June 2008.
The Prague Post: To what do you ascribe Central Park Praha’s blistering sales figures thus far?
Milan Ganik: Central Park Praha is world-class. It’s what we call affordable luxury living, and the Prague market has been waiting for this for a very long time. The key word is “affordable.” We don’t have a single competitor on the Czech residential market — let alone the Prague one — who can match our combination [of] amenities, services and green space. None whatsoever.
TPP: But, with prices ranging between 10 million and 20 million Kč for a typical two- or three-bedroom suite, is this really something the average Czech professional or executive can really afford?
Central Park Praha

Cost: 4 billion Kč ($184.5 million)
Developer: CPP Developments, Václavské nám. 832/19, 110 00 Prague 1
Tel.: 221 199 301
Web: www.centralparkpraha.cz
Schedule: 180 residential apartments to be ready in November, while more than 540 apartments in total to be completed by June 2008
Price: Ranges from 10 million to 20 million Kč ($460,000–$920,000), depending on dimensions, plus additional options and accessories
Transit: Metro Flora or trams No. 9 or 26 lead directly to the property, a 10-minute commute from the city center

MG: Yes. Prague’s labor market has undergone a massive shift in the recent past, and the earning potential for senior staff has risen in accordance with world standards. I stress that these aren’t foreign executives or expats we’re talking about here. Today, Czech professionals expect to get compensated fairly for work done according to world standards, and their salaries certainly reflect that. Like any typical Western executive, Czech executives seek the finer things in life and are prepared to pay for it. Central Park Praha provides them with that opportunity.
TPP: How does CPPD respond to the naysayers who complain about the site’s proximity to Žižkov? Given the quarter’s unsavory past reputation as being on the flip side of clean-cut and respectable, how have CPPD’s marketing efforts counteracted that?
MG: Žižkov today is one of the hippest, classiest and even rated by your very own publication — I might add — the No. 1 residential spot in all of Prague. Prague 3 houses some of the city’s finest Asian restaurants and has the city’s best Serbian restaurant, in addition to discos, nightclubs and upscale wine bars. Since we started, CPPD has been part of a huge revitalization of the quarter, and this is ongoing, and, at the end, Žižkov will resemble nothing of its past appearance. We’ve also been instrumental in the establishment of a “Foundation for the Development of Prague 3.” We like to tell our customers that the complex is situated on some of the oldest property in all of Prague. We’re immediately opposite the Olšanská Cemetery, with tombstones constructed by some of the country’s most skilled sculptors of the past. Any talk of Žižkov in connection with its past will be forgotten over the next 10 years as the area continues to regenerate. The naysayers will fade away.
TPP: Your marketing material mentions that you’re presently 40 percent sold, with plans to be 50 percent sold by this summer. How much of this is foreign-derived and how much is attributable to Czech sources?
MG: We don’t advertise or promote whatsoever in the Western press, so any foreign sales which we do happen to generate come about more as a result of word-of-mouth networks or plain curiosity, like [passers-by] on Vodičkova street. Besides, foreign investors from England or Ireland wouldn’t necessarily be interested in Central Park Praha as an investment target, because we’ve positioned the complex as a club or a community of like-minded individuals who want to live in harmony with the natural surroundings; not just to flip it for a profit or as a source of rental income. Having said that, we do guarantee that our clients will garner a return on their investment, I’ll have you know. But the eventual inhabitants of the complex will, for the most part, share a philosophy about life and family. Our services and amenities, like the onsite fitness and wellness center, the park, the golf course, will reflect that.
TPP: You’ve mentioned there’s presently no competition that comes anywhere close to what Central Park Praha offers the market. Why is that?
MG: Simple. There’s no one else in the country who can deliver what Central Park Praha has. First of all, there’s no other residential complex in the country which offers fully-furnished model suites in the center of town and a fully-equipped showroom and sales staff on call seven days a week. Then, getting more specific to the project itself, there’s no other development currently on the market that can boast this amount of green space or this amount of luxury within such close proximity to the city center. We’re 10 minutes away from the historical center by tram, 25 [minutes by] foot. You’re living right on the border with the traditional trendy and upscale part of Prague, Vinohrady, and you’re not more than 30 minutes from Ruzyně Airport, point-to-point. Central Park Praha is like a wedge which has opened up a formerly neglected part of the city.
TPP: Once the project’s complete, what’s CPPD up to next?
MG: We’re committed to seeing the project through to the very end. Of course, once the last nail is hammered in, we’ll be onsite to manage things, and, as I’ve mentioned, we’re also very committed to Prague 3 and its future development. We like to think that we’re ensuring a high quality of life for anyone who moves into the quarter, or even the [surroundings]. But CPPD doesn’t have anything else on the slate at the moment. You can imagine that, as the largest residential complex in the country, we’ll have our hands more than full.
TPP: In a sentence, what is Central Park Praha?
MG: Let’s say it’s as tremendous an initiative as Central Park in New York City was during its era, just upgraded for the 21st-century.
TPP: That monumental?
MG: That monumental.

Adam Daniel Mezei can be reached at specialsection@praguepost.com


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