A love story. This is how Pepe Pérez, the owner of the iconic building on Calle El Pilar (which was first occupied by Galerías Preciados and later by El Corte Inglés), describes the path that began a few years ago and that, if everything goes as it should, will be completed at the end of this 2022 with the inauguration of the first urban hotel of the Meliá chain in the Canary Islands. This is the Innside by Meliá which, with nine floors and 83 rooms, to which will be added a Mexican restaurant, a “clandestine” jazz club and a chill out terrace, will become a benchmark for Santa Cruz.
Yesterday, the mayor, José Manuel Bermúdez, accompanied by different councilors, went to the building, still under construction, invited by the executive vice president and CEO of Meliá, Gabriel Escarrer, and where the architect responsible for the design, Juan Carlos Piñeiro, was also present. and the four investors (among which there is Canarian capital), who have contributed the ten million at which this investment, which BBVA has provided, is valued.
The alderman congratulated himself on what he defined as “an extraordinary day for Santa Cruz. I am a very happy mayor, because there are Canarian investors who have opted to create wealth in the city”. Bermúdez added that “for us it is an important day, it is yet another hotel from a chain as important as Meliá, with 83 rooms in the center of the city, giving a use to a building that did not have one, and one that, in addition, creates jobs and wealth. We calculate that by the end of the year or the beginning of next year, if the work goes well, we will already have the hotel inaugurated and those jobs created in the center of Santa Cruz”.
Gabriel Escarrer specified that these jobs will be more than a hundred. “We are talking about 70 jobs, plus all those that can be generated in food and drink, which are about 40 more. In total we talk about 110 or 115”.
And it is that, as Escarrer explained, “it is a project that makes us very excited, because it is going to be our first urban hotel in the Canary Islands and we come from the hand of Innside, which is a very current and modern brand, and we believe that It fits perfectly into the local culture. The architect has already explained it perfectly, that it is going to be a hotel that is going to mark a point of reference in Santa Cruz, and the truth is that we are very excited about it. We think it may be open at the end of the year or early next year.”
In addition, the CEO of Meliá added that this hotel is aimed “at people of all ages, with a very modern concept, business travelers, but who also want to extend their stay for a weekend with their family, for that we offer urban hospitality holiday, that is, food, drinks, swimming pool…”.
Gastronomic offer
Regarding the gastronomic and leisure offer, “all the restaurants that we open are to open them to the outside and we think that a large percentage of our clients have to be local people. We believe that for the neighborhood in which we are a Mexican concept would fit very well and that downstairs, in the basement, we want to create a concept of a clandestine cocktail club, with an important influence of jazz, something that comes to add to the leisure offer of the city and with quality”. This last space, as detailed in the presentation of the project, “will be located at the back of the restaurant and, in a “clandestine” way, a camouflaged staircase will be located that will give access to a Jazz Bar, which to access you will have to facilitate a password. Space that will offer live music and shows.
This offer is completed with the terrace, in which, explained Escarrer, “we are committed to a chill out environment, as a meeting point, a meeting point for local people, where they can have breakfast, lunch, and dinner”, concluded the executive vice president of Melia.
The architect Juan Carlos Piñeira offered the details of a structure that will have the aforementioned 83 rooms, so that there will be 75 distributed between the first and seventh floors, some of which will have balconies, while eight suites will be located on the eighth with large terraces.
It will also be on this last floor that the pool will be located, which will be one of the symbols of the hotel, all glass, even on the ground, which will be suspended and cantilevered towards the street. From this point of the building you can enjoy a 360º view of the city. The façade, as Piñeira explained, will be glazed, and some of the rooms will have balconies.
“In those without a balcony, there will be a generous window that can be opened or closed by pressing a button,” he said. In addition, in all rooms, as soon as the door is opened, all the lights will turn on.
