At this year’s Real Vienna real estate and investment fair, the Austrian Green Building Council (ÖGNI) is to award a gold certificate for building and location to the Amazon Court building, which was completed in 2009. Gold is the highest level award in the international certification system of the German Sustainable Building Council and this is the first time that it is being given to a building in Prague.

Bruno Ettenauer, CEO of CA Immo commented: “This certificate is important to us because it makes the quality of Amazon Court more transparent and easier for the market to understand. Many other properties in our portfolio have been constructed to the same criteria but have not yet been certified. As a part of the sustainability evaluation of our property assets, which was commenced in 2011, we will screen all our properties and increase the quality of our portfolio systematically during the next years.” CA Immo currently has seven projects involved in the certification process internationally; along with the Nord 1 office building in the Frankfurt Europaviertel, which was awarded DGNB silver, Amazon Court is the second property of the CA Immo standing portfolio to be certified.

The DGNB evaluation system examines both the building and also the location from every perspective of sustainability, with ecological, economic, functional and technical quality all being looked at. Amazon Court, together with the Nile House and Danube House office properties, make up the River City Prague office location in a prime position close to Prague’s city centre. All three properties form part of the CA Immo portfolio since the takeover of Europolis in January 2011.
“With Amazon Court we are designating a flagship project as a “Blue Building”, which is sustainable is the best sense of the word. Users of this building can work in top-quality air and in a comfortable atmosphere. We need partners like CA Immo, for whom this topic is a permanent component of everyday work, to achieve a paradigm shift towards sustainability,” says Philipp Kaufmann, founding president of ÖGNI.

The property, with usable space of about 23,000 sqm, combines top workplace quality with outstanding energy efficiency and modern architecture and thus sets the trend for a new generation in the office property sector. The excellent ecological and architectural quality of Amazon Court has already been recognised with the award of several international prizes, including the MIPIM Award from the Architectural Review magazine in the “Future Project” category, the award from the Construction & Investment Journal in the “Best office development 2009” category and the Best of Realty Award 2010.

The spacious atrium in the centre of the building is fitted with a transparent, light and airy structure made of Foiltech and has a transparent bridge system forming the connection between office areas and communicating and terrace areas. An energy-saving ventilation system is used in Amazon Court, reducing energy consumption by 35 to 40% in comparison with conventional office buildings while, at the same time, creating a healthy, attractive working environment. The system utilises fresh air from the banks of the River Moldau that is fed into the building via underground air shafts, with the temperature being regulated using heat pumps. Automatic temperature regulation at night, special glass, textile shading and many other functional applications ensure the low energy consumption of the building.

About CA Immo
CA Immo was founded in 1987. The company invests in commercial real estate (and in particular offices) in Austria, Germany and Eastern Europe. Taking account of properties worth some € 1.5 bn acquired through the takeover of Europolis, CA Immo's property assets at the start of 2011 stand at just over € 5 bn; the CEE/SEE and Germany each account for around 40 % of this total.  CA Immo has been listed on the Vienna Stock Exchange since 1988, with free float of around 83% at the present time.