Revitalized space at the new Ostrava University campus in the city center, January 17, 2023, Ostrava.
Ostrava – The University of Ostrava is opening the City Campus today at the Černá louka exhibition center with new university buildings for sports and art. From February, new trainers, teachers, musicians, production and graphic designers will be trained in the University's sports and behavioral health facilities and in the Art and Design Cluster. The costs of building university buildings exceeded one billion crowns. The university expects the new campus to help it become more competitive and attract more students. Rector of the university Jan Lata told journalists. Prime Minister Petr Fiala (ODS) will also inspect the campus during his visit to the regional capital in the afternoon.
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“City Campus will move Ostrava among the leading student cities and will be an impetus for the further development of Ostrava. It will be an attractive region for young people who will be educated here in fields that the transforming region needs,” said Lata, rector of the university, which is attended by about 10,000 students. a building for the Faculty of Arts was created, but it is smaller than originally expected. According to the rector, it is primarily intended for the music part of the faculty. “Classical fields such as painting and sculpture remain in the premises in Podlahova Street. But the building is designed in such a way that it will allow possible completion, if we are able to get financing for it,” added Lata.
In another part of the campus there is a sports facility that will serve the needs of the students of the Department of Human Movement Studies of the Faculty of Education of the University of Ostrava. The university was the only one in the Czech Republic that did not have its own sports field. The world of sports and art connects the space with a wide residential staircase between the two buildings. Digital graphics workplaces, music studios, sports fields and diagnostic laboratories, including a rooftop running track, will be opened for students on Černá louka. For example, there will be a hall for ball sports the size of three basketball courts, a gymnastics hall certified by the World Gymnastics Federation, an indoor climbing wall or a workout field. The artistic part will offer a chamber hall with top-quality acoustics for 242 spectators, which includes a piano for five million crowns, or exhibition spaces in the white cube style, which will make the exhibited works of art visible with their neutrality of white walls. The area will also be open to the public.
“Visitors to the campus can already see the square, the staircase, the roof oval, the running track, the workout field or meditate on the new Václav Havel Bench. However, we are also preparing a whole range of events for professionals and the general public in the multifunctional spaces, currently at the beginning of April the career festival Za career and at the end of June a big cultural and sports happening We are Ostravská! In the spring we will launch a reservation system for renting individual sports venues. Our goal is for City Campus to become the new cultural and sports center of Ostrava,” said the head of the Center for Marketing, Communication and popularization of the University of Ostrava by Adam Soustružník. Thus, traditional events such as the Night of Scientists or the student Majáles will also take place on campus.
The new university facilities, which are located on an area of almost four hectares in the city center, began to be built in 2020. The university covered most of the costs with the help of European subsidies, which it received through a call for universities in structurally affected regions. The university received grants of 357.8 million crowns for the Art and Design Cluster and 645.9 million crowns for the University Sports and Behavioral Health Facility. The university shared in the costs with a five percent co-payment, which was financed for the most part through the land on which the buildings were built. Land for 41.7 million crowns was donated to the university by the city of Ostrava, which at the same time had a public underground parking lot built on the campus. The construction of a parking lot with a capacity of 155 spaces cost 175 million crowns without VAT. The Moravian-Silesian Region also contributed to the project documentation and the building itself.
“We strive to strengthen Ostrava's position as a university city. The newly opened student campus will offer attractive opportunities for education and spending free time not only for students, but also for other residents and visitors to Ostrava. And thanks to its location, it will undoubtedly contribute to the further revitalization of the historic center,” said Mayor Tomáš Macura (ANO). Governor Ivo Vondrák (ANO) said that the transformation of the region cannot be carried out without universities, which he considers to be its basic pillar.
