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December 5th, 2008
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Palladium damage highlights flaws

Garage fire leaves uninsured store owners desperate for solutions

By Ondřej Bouda
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
February 27th, 2008 issue

Since the Feb. 20 fire at Prague’s newest shopping center the Palladium, the road to reopening looks longer than first expected. While the shopping center was initially supposed to open Feb. 25, it will now reportedly remain closed for about three weeks.
The fire broke out in an underground parking lot, prompting firefighters to evacuate around 3,000 shoppers and employees from the retail center at 5 p.m. Many of them had to wait around for at least an hour and a half while the fire was being put out until they could get to their cars and personal belongings. No one was injured and immediate financial losses were not large. The consequences, however, have proved much more serious.
Despite the fact that the fire was quite small and quickly extinguished, its location has made repairs difficult. While experts have not yet determined the cause of the fire, they know it started in the main electrical distribution point, which was critically damaged. In addition to replacing damaged parts, they will have to retest all electrical circuits.
According to security experts, when the Palladium was built, its design did not include security measures that could have prevented such extensive damage, the Internet news server iDnes reported. The building has just one large electrical circuit that is not divided into different zones. There are also no backup power sources that could have hastened the reopening of the shopping center and reduced repair costs.
The owner of Palladium will not be reimbursing any of the 170 shops and 30 restaurants for damages caused by the prolonged closure. All shops were required to be insured against losses from such events.
“We have already scrapped goods in refrigerators and freezers in the Albert grocery store,” Libor Kytýr, spokesman of supermarket chain Ahold, told ČTK.
However, many of the smaller shops could not afford the insurance and are now desperately looking for a solution. They continue to pay rent despite the fact that the shopping center is closed. Regarding such difficulties, Palladium spokeswoman Veronika Kozová told iDnes, “We expect everyone to be insured, but if there are any exceptions, we’ll try to help them as much as possible.”

Ondřej Bouda can be reached at obouda@praguepost.com


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