When current and former colleagues learned that journalists were being allowed to walk around the Press House in its current form for the last time, their main concern was whether the building would be leveled with the ground to build a forty-story monster in its place. The building is not nice, nor does it widen or rise. It will retain its existing appearance. The inside will change beyond recognition. In place of the former offices, there will be hotel rooms with a view of one of the four sides of the sky. At the moment, there are sometimes terrible views inside the building.
Windows without handles
The first employees of the newspaper “Cīņa” joined the Press House – on October 4, 1978. After several years, it also became my first job. I found what my former colleague Egons Strautiņš wrote in the columns “Cīņas”: “While waiting for St. George’s Day, we browsed our farm, and then it turned out that the journalist’s luggage contains not only a pen and notepad, but also a pile of reference books, bales, glue, scissors and other details. not to mention. There was even a brand new milk strainer and two pudu heavy weight balls. The high-rise building of the press house welcomed with majestic peace: “Welcome. Go to the fourth and fifth floors and feel at home. You have quick lifts at your disposal, but for the sake of your health and vitality, I recommend climbing! » Mmm. Good thing you don’t have to climb higher! Behind the large, bright windows – the Daugava, the city. Even from such a modest height, the silhouette of Old Riga seems unusually lovely and attractive. I want to open the window, breathe in the brightness of autumn, but – there are no handles! ”
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The newspaper Cīņa, which was an integral part of the reading of all institutions, was published in the late 1970s in a circulation of 214,800 copies. At the moment, it seems like a very large circulation. However, the age of electronics has greatly expanded access to the latest information. For comparison – the number of views for the nra.lv portal in summer is one third higher, in winter – even half as large as the circulation of “Cīņas”.
Innovative and thorough
At the end of the 1970s, the high-rise building of the Press House was an extremely modern building. Its construction cost about 23.9 million rubles. At that time, the issue of the newspaper “Cīņa” cost 5 kopecks, “Rīgas Balss” – 3 kopecks.
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The press house was built in several stages, and each of them could be compared to a separate large new building in terms of the amount of work performed. For example, about 3,000 cubic meters of concrete are laid in the foundations of the printing house alone. Preparations for concreting the foundations of the editorial office building took place for more than a month. The concreting works took place in three shifts without taking a breath. “It took a lot of effort, physical and creative, to concretize the 75-meter-high monolithic core. It was the most difficult, the most difficult, and therefore the most interesting. Everything was for the first time. We built a monolith in a sliding style. No one in the republic had done it before, ”Jānis Gintauts, the 55th Brigadier General of the Riga Industrial Construction Trust, admitted to the newspaper Rīgas Balss in 1978.
Even with today’s view, the Press House was really built very thoroughly and to stay. There are still marble tiles that cover the stairs to the assembly hall. The vandals could not tear them off. Much else has been ruined.
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At present, nothing is left of the pneumopaste system. It connected the editorial rooms with the printing house so that employees did not have to run between the editorial office and the printing house. The articles and page excerpts were placed in a special capsule and then sent by pneumatic paste (via special pipes with compressed air) to the required addressee at the Press House. It happened that the capsule got stuck or got in the way. Therefore, it was not used for extremely important materials, but was taken to a spell and handed over.
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Will become a hotel with 307 rooms
At the end of July, the implementation of the 1st round project of the Press House Quarter will start. It also provides for the reconstruction of the historic Press House building. In the first development phase of the project, it is planned to build a modern Class A office center, retail premises with the first football pitch in the Baltics on the roof of the building and a Holiday Inn hotel, which will be the first InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) hotel in Latvia.
In the name of the project, we have kept the words “Press House”, taking into account the historical context and significance of this building. The Press House quarter will be one of the most modern and innovative business centers in Riga. At the end of July, we will start reconstruction and construction works, which we plan to complete in 2022, ”reveals Gedrus Bernots, a representative of PN Project.
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The new Press House block will be located in the Knowledge Mile area in Pārdaugava, and next to the innovative business center it is planned to create a high-quality public outdoor space, where green areas and recreation places for pedestrians and cyclists will be created. The existing high-rise building of the Press House will be reconstructed into a 4-star IHG hotel, while a multifunctional center with retail space, a dining area and a multi-storey car park will be built on the site of the partially demolished existing printing house, as well as a unique in the technical development of which the Latvian Football Federation has also participated.
In the first phase of the project 25 000 m2 designed for the installation of Class A offices, 7000 m2 – retail premises, as well as a multi-storey car park, but a “Holiday Inn” hotel with 307 rooms will be established in the building of the former Press House.
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The project intends to pay special attention to energy efficiency, the choice of environmentally friendly materials, the availability of the environment, the creation of a healthy working environment and sustainable management. In addition to high-class office premises that will meet the BREEAM certificate “Excellent” standard and are designed for a total of 2,500 people, there will also be several catering establishments, shops, conference rooms, as well as 200 bicycle sheds, more than 970 parking lots, 27 electric car charging stations, walking places and terraces with greenery.
The author of the construction concept of the territory of the former Press House is the architect Andris Kronbergs and SIA “ARHIS Arhitekti”.
It is a pleasure to say that with the building permit, the ideas and solutions envisaged in the project have been “passed” through all the twists and turns of the process and have now acquired the legal right to be implemented. It is particularly gratifying that the intentions regarding the creation of a public outdoor space in this area (around buildings and on buildings) have been understood and supported by all those involved and responsible. Now it just needs to be implemented, and I believe that this place will soon be an attractive, popular, actively used and loved part of the center of Riga, ”said Andris Kronbergs.
The project developer is the investment fund “Lords LB Special Fund V”. The project implementer is a subsidiary of the fund in Latvia – “AS PN Project”. Lords LB Special Fund V is managed by Lords LB Asset Management, an investment management company licensed by the Bank of Lithuania, which has been providing services to both institutional and private investors since 2008.
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