Bratislava-Nova Assembly approves €2.8m plaza restoration

The Nord Europa Regional Assembly voted 34–8 on Thursday to fund a comprehensive restoration of Žižka Plaza, the fifteenth-century civic heart of Bratislava-Nova. The €2.8 million project, approved after two years in the Assembly's Heritage Committee, will repair the plaza's original sandstone colonnades, restore the fountain at its centre, and replace subsurface utilities without disturbing the medieval foundations. The work is expected to take eighteen months.

The vote followed a presentation by the Federal Heritage Office, which designated the plaza a site of inter-regional cultural significance in March. The designation opened access to federal matching funds, reducing the burden on the regional budget. Assembly members from both urban and rural districts supported the project, citing its role in drawing domestic tourism and anchoring the city's commercial core.

The restoration team will be led by Mikael Sörensen, the stonemason who directed the 2019 recovery of the Old Town Hall's eastern façade. Sörensen's firm has already begun preliminary surveys of the colonnades. The Assembly's vote now triggers a sixty-day public comment period before contracts are issued.