Now being developed by investors Accolade and Garbe, the land of the Borsov Economic Development Zone I was purchased in 1998, with initial zoning plans banking on the construction of a large shopping centre.
This never materialised, and in 2020 developers received zoning approval for the construction of four smaller, separate industrial halls – two of which already have building permits – for a total built area of over 148,000 square metres. Now, the modalities have changed again.
Accolade and Garbe redesigned the entire project into a single, larger building (77,000 square metres in size, about 500 metres long and 15 metres high) specifically for a single tenant – Amazon – on an expected 20-year-lease agreement. About 2,500 people could be employed there, working on a two-shift rotation running almost non-stop from 06:30 to 04:30.
According to Borsov nad Vltavou’s mayor, Romana Rycova, the municipality was only informed about the change at the end of April. And in a video posted on August 13, Mayor Rycova stated that the municipal council must now approve the new variant by the end of August or the investors will redesign the project so they can bypass the municipality’s approval – despite an earlier promise made to residents to “wait as long as you need”.
Representatives for the investors tell BIRN that their earlier communication might have been misconstrued. “When we said that there would be no time pressure, we meant that we would not push municipal council members towards a particular decision or influence how they vote,” says Tomas Mile, project manager at Accolade.
“It did not mean that the project itself had no commercial timetable,” he says, adding that the municipality had been informed since late 2025 about the changes. Rather than a sudden change, Mile describes the new single-building option as “the gradual development of a new option in response to a specific requirement from a prospective tenant”.
Furthermore, he says that while “we understand the concerns raised by residents”, he makes the case that developers have shown goodwill and transparency over the past several months to explain the differences and varying impacts to local residents.
Amazon did not respond to BIRN’s requests for comment.
However, Horakova says she has attended all the public meetings held over the past several months and describes the communication there from developers as “misleading at best”.
Considering the new parameters of the project, she also believes that fresh independent studies should be conducted to upgrade now-outdated environmental impact studies and properly evaluate the impact of such a massive distribution centre on traffic, air-quality, noise pollution and local landscape preservation – just a few of the main concerns expressed by both residents and city officials over the past several months.
“We’ve found no evidence that these studies have been updated for the new design, including in the investor’s own newest technical documentation,” Horakova explains.
Echoing the thoughts of other locals, Horakova accuses the developers of “not being a trustworthy party”. Case in point, Veronika Zacha – who became Garbe’s senior manager for business development for Czechia after moving from Panattoni in 2022 – promised during an August town hall meeting: “We don’t want to pressure the municipality, we also understand that you need to familiarise yourself with all the information, so you have time.”
Yet shortly afterwards, city councillors received an SMS clarifying that developers expect a decision by the end of the month – or else they will move ahead with the four-hall format, according to information from iRozhlas.cz and other local outlets.