The Business Center of Katowice (Katowickie Centrum Biznesu, KCB), an office building located in the very heart of the City not far away from “Spodek” and the roundabout, was an inglorious icon of “unfinished business” for many years. Now, it seems that the building will be completed at last. Maciej Jaglarz, a businessman and owner of the “Separator” office building at 2 Korfantego Av. and co-owner of the “Profi-Lingua” language schools’ chain, bought the KCB and want to change its gloomy history.
In the beginning of the nineties of last century, the City of Katowice and Austrian company IAEG formed a partnership called “Katowickie Centrum Biznesu”. The City’s contribution was a 1,5 ha development plot, IAEG was to finance the investment. The project had started in the late nineties but the building was never finished because of financial problems of IAEG. The “Katowickie Centrum Biznesu” partnership was declared a bankrupt. The building’s skeleton and the plot were changing hands several times. None of these companies decided to finish the building. Finally, Maciej Jaglarz became a new owner and announces to conclude the project. Preparatory works already started.
The building will have eight ground storeys after completion as one additional floor will be built on top of the original 7-storey construction. The underground floor is planned as a car park. “A total area of the building will comprise 18 000 sq. meters of which 11 000 sq. meters is designed for rentable space of +B/A class offices. Except the underground car park for 125 vehicles, additional 170 places are situated near the building and also we will offer a parking lot with a self-service system nearby the “Silesia” hotel. All together it gives more than 400 parking places” – said Maciej Jaglarz.
The construction work is to be launched any day now. “A construction crew and first tower crane should appear at the site this week. Lately, some preparatory works were running inside the building and on the roof where the additional storey will be built on. Also, we plan to create there a terrace for tenants’ use. What is more, a garden is designed on the front-end first storey’s roof. The building will be equipped with four lifts and is going to be modernly adapted. We plan to finish the works in January 2012” – said Marcin Pawlik, Project Manager of the investment.
The architectural design of the building was prepared by the “Arkat” studio from Katowice. The investor already started a commercialization process of the office space. It will be mostly occupied by banks. Headquarters of “Citi Handlowy” and “ING Bank Śląski” operate in the nearest area for many years now.
