On November 8, it was one year since the street works began Imeldo Serís, on Santa Cruz. Some works to improve the canalization, with an execution period of 12 months, and with authorization to finish them in December of this year. Works that are going “at a good pace” and that “have allowed to open, until today, all possible sections of the street,” as he told NOTICE JOURNAL the Councilor for Infrastructure, Dámaso Arteaga. “This Thursday we began to asphalt so that it could be finished for the celebration on Saturday of Full Moon,” explained the councilor, who also explained that “the sidewalks and shops are open, and we are working in the lower area, in Teobaldo Power and the crossing of Valentín Sanz. The only thing that is restricted is vehicle traffic, but it is estimated that for the first 15 days of January, the street will be fully open ”.
A work that the mayor described as “complicated and brave”, because “it was necessary to carry out a very important rainwater conduction and it was necessary to subject the neighbors and merchants to many annoyances such as noise and unpleasant odors”.
Arteaga acknowledged that “it has been a complicated year” and pointed out that the City Council will do everything possible to “energize the street and revitalize commerce in the area.” Something that merchants need, and a lot, because they assure that the work has been done “very long” and that “the situation has been very hard.”
This is the case of María José, who works in a bookstore. He says that until September it was “very difficult to travel through the area because the passage has been very limited, there were noises, dust and bad smells, and people did not come here. We have had to offer home delivery service, with very adjusted prices, so as not to lose all the activity ”.
One of the workers of a record store told DIARIO DE AVISOS that he is already seeing “the light at the end of the tunnel” and that it has been “very hard because, although the street needed these improvements, they began before Christmas and after the months more complicated parts of the pandemic ”.
“We are not satisfied with the execution, because they told us that the street would be opened in phases and they gave us up to six dates. And it was not fulfilled. It has not been up to the task ”. This is what Raúl, owner of a hairdresser, says, who indicates that, during the first months of the work, “there were few personnel”, and that the surrounding streets should have been used to put the material that is in the upper area of the street, to open in phases.
“We have not stopped paying expenses and taxes and we have lost a lot of money”
Owner of a restaurant in Imeldo Serís
They say that they have lost many customers passing through, because “it was practically impossible to pass through here. There were times when the fences and the machines themselves closed our access and people, out of fear, stayed at home or decided to go to another area to buy ”. Also, that they have experienced very difficult situations. “One day a rat even got into me that I had to remove with an iron rod, it filled my tent with dust, and the gases from the engines entered me. We couldn’t work like that ”.
“We have not stopped paying expenses and taxes, and we have lost a lot of money,” says the owner of a restaurant who, despite having a license to install a terrace, has not been able to receive customers outside the premises due to “smells, the noise, and the dust ”.
In one way or another, merchants and entrepreneurs have continued to open their businesses and have tried to “weather the storm”. They have turned upside down promoting their activity through social networks, they have printed the logos of the stores and they have put them in the Calle del Castillo as a claim for buyers. In addition, they have received the support of merchants in other areas who have “sent a lot of people” and recommended them. Something for which they feel “very grateful”, they point out.
They await the opening of the street “like children on Three Kings Day.” And it is that despite the inconveniences, and with “a lot of patience”, everyone is looking forward to the day when it opens, which will look totally different.
