Budapest’s plan to turn the courtyard behind City Hall into a public park has received the permits it needed from the heritage authority. Detailed construction plans can now be prepared and could be ready by early next year. The city wants the site, in the heart of Budapest where green space per resident is lowest, to become a new main square.
What the permits cover
The heritage office approved both the City Hall Park plan and the Open City Hall plan. Open City Hall means converting, opening up and connecting the building’s ground-floor rooms, with cafés, terraces and catering units. According to the concept plans, the ground-floor space planned for opening covers more than 6,000 m².
A park built on sponge-city principles
The courtyard currently sits lower than the buildings around it: City Hall’s rear ground floor is half a storey higher, and the Merlin building also stands higher. The ground will be levelled, and the lower area will become a medium that retains roof water and rain and reuses it for irrigation.
| Surface | Planned area |
|---|---|
| Green space | 7,730 m² |
| Rainwater-collecting paving | 6,966 m² |
| Permeable paving | 850 m² |
The concept plans also include 80 trees planted with the Stockholm method. On the site of the former car park, the share of green space is set to rise to 50 per cent. The city’s recently completed stormwater strategy treats rainwater as a resource to be used locally rather than a problem.
Why it took time and what comes next
The design competition was launched in 2021 and decided in 2022. First prize went to A KÖR, the entry by the Lépték-Terv landscape architecture office. The concept plans were presented in early 2025.
The city says strict monument rules and changes to higher-level legislation, including the building law, slowed the process. The city’s financial situation also held the project back. Work had to wait for the renovation of City Hall’s facade facing Károly körút and of the Merlin. In the meantime, the city began transforming the area with a pop-up park opened in spring 2024.
Cost estimates were presented to a city committee together with the concept plans. The basic programme, covering the park and Open City Hall, was put at 4.2 billion, with a further HUF 1.6 billion needed for proposed additional elements. Funding is to come from reallocations from the city’s general reserve in coming budgets. Under the planning team’s optimal scenario, construction itself could start in 2028.