The finishing works in the sauna part of the Thermal Hotel’s swimming pool center in Karlovy Vary will culminate next week with the approval ceremony. For the needs of this year’s 56th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, which will begin on July 1, the reconstructed public part of the passage and the floor of the Congress Hall will also be ready.
“All the work is now aimed at making the premises available for the festival next week,” said Vladimír Novák, General Manager of the Thermal Hotel.
Swimming pools and saunas for 160 million
“For the pool center, the final interior and technology approvals are scheduled for next week. If everything goes as it should, the sauna center will be put into operation a few days later, ” the director continued, adding that the last paintings are currently being finished. The heat recovery technology is being fine-tuned. The park landscaping around the paddling pool is also underway.
The pool center, without the sauna world, was inaugurated during the festival last year. However, operations were suspended at the end of the year to rectify all the shortcomings, and work resumed on the sauna area, including the interconnection of technologies.
“The final value of the investment is not yet precise, but plus or minus it is estimated at CZK 160 million for the pool and sauna part,” Novák added. Visitors can already enjoy probably the most beautiful view of the spa center of Karlovy Vary from the top floor of the pool center, where a restaurant is already in operation. The outdoor pool and a smaller pool filled only with Carlsbad spring water at around 38 degrees have been open again since May.
The workers have not yet ultimately left the hotel, practically without scaffolding. The director described the work on the base of the hotel tower as “the work on the hotel tower will run until the beginning of next year, when the entrance to the Great Hall will be redesigned, the reception will be modernized, and the casino will be moved,” the director said, adding that so far around CZK 680 million has been invested, including the swimming pool.
New changing rooms for employees, an escape staircase, and an evacuation lift are also planned later this year. “We are preparing to repair the parking areas, and we will start to deal with the hotel area in the autumn, for which we will probably announce an architectural competition,” Novák said, according to which the remaining seven floors of the hotel tower should be rebuilt internally next year. In total, the cost of the thermal’s renovation should be around CZK 1 billion.