Local private owners and developers are currently offering attractive sites for developing business premises (greenfields) as well as rental space in high-quality industrial halls. Some investors have established their businesses in redeveloped industrial estates, while others have built their premises in new industrial zones. The industrial zones developed by the City are already fully occupied.
Current opportunities for manufacturing and logistics investors
Investors in light industry may currently establish their businesses in the recently developed Technological Park at Olomouc – Hněvotín with the total area of 47 hectares. Suitably located nearby a junction with a motorway heading to Prostějov and Brno, the zone is owned by a private developer. Investors may count on up to 52,000 square meters of space available in the currently developed rental halls. The first rental hall is available since the summer of 2014.
- P3 Park, Olomouc: modern rental halls
Industrial space suitable for logistic companies and light manufacturing in rental halls of total area 39,785 square meters. 4,500 square meters of vacant space is available in a brand-new hall from January 2015.
Renovated rental hall offers currently 700 (+215) square meters of floor suitable for light manufacturing, warehousing and logistics; available from April 2016.
- Other rental halls and entrepreneurial zones available in Olomouc
Several Olomouc-based private companies offer large rental spaces suitable for light manufacturing, warehousing, and logistics in existing industrial halls. Many existing premises, having been reconstructed and modernised, now offer business premises to local manufacturers and investors from abroad.
Opportunities for Innovation Start-Ups
The Palacký University Science and Technology Park offers space at a very favourable rent (office space, laboratories, and small manufacturing shops) in two business incubators and adjacent areas in the ‘Šlechtitelů’ Industrial Zone. The premises are suitable for small and medium-sized start-ups oriented on a hi-tech technology, with a promising business plan. The Park provides enterprises with a wide range of facilities and services, including consultancy.
Industrial zones developed by the City
As a result of municipal initiatives and the government-sponsored Programme of Industrial Zones Development, substantial amounts of direct investments came from abroad between 1998 and 2002, particularly into manufacturing plants. Thanks to this funding, about 2,000 new jobs were created directly and many others indirectly in supplier companies in the city and its vicinity. The new industrial zones were either developed by reconverting so-called brownfield areas (e.g. ‘Keplerova’ industrial zone), or by extending and further exploiting the existing ones (Pavelkova, Železniční, Šlechtitelů). By attracting mostly medium-sized companies from abroad – manufacturers from different industries with a high added value – the City of Olomouc managed to maintain and strengthen the diversified structure of the local economy
In addition to attracting foreign investors and large companies, the city has also prepared building plots complete with infrastructure for smaller local enterprises. In cooperation with Palacky University, it has developed the ‘Šlechtitelů’ industrial zone and business incubator (co-financed from Phare 2003) completed in 2006. The Palacky University Science and Technology Park (located in the building of the business incubator) offers consultancy and business premises for low rent to emerging innovation companies, in particular those involved in the fields of nanotechnology, biotechnology and IT. The City of Olomouc has also started to reconvert a long-neglected area of former military barracks at Neředín, which is going to be used for business in part. The barracks are situated next to the Olomouc airstrip, whose infrastructure the city would preferably like to renew and increase.