Bubny Redevelopment/ORCO Property Group   

Creating solutions to deliver greater profit in a challenging market

The Bubny site located in the Holesovice district of Prague, is one of the few remaining major regeneration sites available in the city. It represents the biggest regeneration project by floor area in all of Central Europe. ORCO acquired the site in 2007 and have set out to establish a clear vision for the regeneration of the site over a long term 15-20 year delivery timescale.

The challenges included the complexities of the site andthe financial burden of railway, subway and highway infrastructure improvements, which represent major barriers to financial success. For these reasons, the Bubny project requires an alternative and innovative approach to funding and delivery. Due to the strategically important nature of the site, in the context of Prague’s urban design framework, the long term programme needs to be interlinked with municipal investment programmes, for the delivery of proposed infrastructure improvements adjacent to the site.Considering the following variables:

• the need to deliver a long term scheme of varied content and in line with market demand
  
• external constraints, and
  
• financial viability requirements,

the Bubny project requires a considerable amount of flexibility and most importantly, the challenge facing EC Harris is delivering to a project that must maximise certainty over normally high risk infrastructure costs.

Creating solutions

• EC Harris has established a master cost plan for this development, linking asset creation on a building by building, plot by plot, phase by phase basis. This plan enables the client and design team to assess the impact of changing functional use, area, efficiency parameters and infrastructure provision, on the financial appraisal for the development.
  
• By using external benchmark data for building shapes and efficiencies, EC Harris has been able to drive the necessary client brief parameters for each type of building. This now determines the ‘baseline’ for the progression of the master plan into delivery phase which has now commenced.

Adding value

EC Harris added value through the delivery process by:

• The establishment of a complete commercial control platform that has put the client in control of this major complex long term investment, through access to client design brief, capital cost targets, cash flow and phasing requirements.
  
• The ability to influence the design of the master plan from a building morphology and specification perspective, maximising the profit creation potential from the scheme.

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