Urbex in the centre of town

In my last article I mentioned that the tourist walk Přerov bridges was topped off with a view from the roof of the local hotel Strojař.

And this building has a story.

Hotel Strojař was built in 1968 on the banks of the river Bečva in Přerov (Czechia). It functioned partly as a regular hotel and partly as a hostel for the employees of Přerov Machinery Works, which was the largest company in the area. Up to 450 people could be accommodated on nine floors, with two restaurants, a barber shop or a laundry room.

In the 1990s, the Přerov Machine Works transformed and did not need a hotel. It was bought by the Armed Forces, who used it as a hostel for the soldiers of the nearby helicopter base. However, the Air Force base also moved away and the hotel remained abandoned.

The hotel became a "ghost house". Most of the rooms look as if they've been vacated a short time ago. Furniture, bedding, pictures on the walls, a forgotten toothbrush in the bathroom. An open accommodation book in the reception area. The rooms are stuffy and there is a layer of dust on everything, but many rooms are practically untouched.

The city bought the hotel to prevent some profiteer from turning it into another hostel for troublemakers. But what about it? One option is to demolish it. But that's costly and technologically problematic - the building sits in a busy and cramped location. The other option - reconstruction - is also financially challenging, with the added uncertainty of the building's future use.

To ensure at least some use of this unwanted building, the city rented it out to the police and army for training. And it was bound to happen at some point...

I don't know if it was a common carelessness in the handling of pyrotechnics or if the soldiers got too carried away with the reality of the training, but in September 2023, while practicing combat in the building, they managed to set the hotel on fire. Although the situation was under control, with only one room burned down, many citizens were disturbed that such military operations were taking place practically in the center of the city.

However, the Strojař hotel in Přerov still stands and nobody wants it. The council and the citizens have many ideas about what to do with it, but they all end up saying that it costs too much money or that it is not at all clear how the building could be used. Nobody wants the hotel, nobody needs it, but nobody has the money or the power to remove it.