City Tower (Prague)

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Information
City Tower
City Tower in centre (year 2006, during reconstruction)
Location	Prague, Czech Republic
Coordinates	50°03′01″N 14°26′10″E / 50.05028, 14.43611Coordinates: 50°03′01″N 14°26′10″E / 50.05028, 14.43611
Status	Complete
Groundbreaking	1985
Constructed	1985-1993
Opening	2008
Use	office
Height
Antenna/Spire	116 m ^[1]
Roof	109 m
Top floor	109 m
Floor count	27
Owner	CITY TOWER, s.r.o.

Prague skyscrapers, City Tower on right (year 2005, before reconstruction)

City Tower is a skyscraper in Prague, the tallest one in the Czech Republic with 109 m in height, now pending radical reconstruction.

Construction started in 1985 and the building was designated as a headquarters of Československý rozhlas (now Český rozhlas - Czech publicly funded radio broadcaster). In 1993 the building was nearly completed, but appeared to be oversized for Český rozhlas (split from Československý rozhlas after Czechoslovakia break-up), technically obsolete and full of dangerous asbestos.

In later years Český rozlas was trying to sell the uncompleted building. In 1996 an agreement was signed with the company NIKO to sell the building for 1 billion CZK, but subsequently failed to pay the agreed amount. A similar scenario happened one year later with the Singaporean company Wells Holding and an agreed selling price of 550 millions CZK. Finally the building was sold in 1999 to the company ECM for just 285 millions CZK.

After a long planning process and legislatory planning steps the radical reconstruction of the building, projected by Richard Meier, started in 2005 and is scheduled to be completed by 2008. At 20 December 2007 the building obtained final building approval. First tenants will move into the building at the beginning of 2008.^[2]