The works will be carried out in three phases., the first being the promenade, of 3,431 square meters; the second corresponds to the Plaza de la Patrona, with 13,640 square meters; and the third will be the Plaza de los Artesanos, measuring 2,354 square meters. The project also contemplates undertaking the improvement of hydraulic pipelines and sanitation in this space.
“With this very important action we fulfill a historical debt with the Candelaria City Council and with the citizenry”
The total area affected by this action is 19,425 square meters. The financing is multi-year in nature, given the scale of the works and the cost involved in their execution. In total, the budget is divided into 1,662,000 euros for this year; 8,533,655 euros to spend in 2024; 7,915,980 euros will be used in 2025 and during the year 2026 918,313 euros will be invested.
Some works
Among other works, the construction of a ramp building is planned, in the Plaza de La Patrona, which will house a sacred museum, a multifunctional room and a tourist office as prominent uses. The total constructed area will be 1,073.31 m². The Paseo de San Blas and Cueva de Los Camellos and the Plaza de La Patrona will also be repaved, in addition to pedestrianizing Antón Guanche street, transforming it into a linear plaza at its upper end.
Pedro Martín considers that, “with this very important action, we fulfill a historical debt with the Candelaria City Council and with the citizens, to build a new space in this symbolic place for Tenerife, one of the most visited on the island as a permanent place of pilgrimage and that required this intervention”.
The mayoress of Candelaria, Mari Brito, expresses her satisfaction that this project so longed for by the candelarieros and the visitors of the Villa Mariana is a reality, after years of intense work between the administrations. “Today, we can say that Candelaria will soon have the project it needs and deserves for one of the most emblematic and visited places in the Archipelago, the Plaza de la Patrona de Canarias,” she highlighted.
A little history
June 14, 2000 was when Ricardo Melchior, then president of the Cabildo de Tenerife, together with the then mayor of Candelaria, Rodolfo Afonso, announced the remodeling of the Plaza de la Patrona. Melchior said that it would be the first to be executed of the three island squares (the other two are the Plaza de España, in Santa Cruz, and Plaza del Cristo, in La Laguna). His hope, he said at the time, was that the works would begin before the end of the mandate, in May 2003.
It is now, 23 years later, when the beginning of the work of a project that “was in a drawer” and without the mandatory sectoral reports is glimpsed when Pedro Martín to the island government, in 2019.
The drafting of the remodeling project for the Plaza de la Patrona de Canarias was awarded in 2010, being modified to incorporate the canalization works of the channel that runs under the square and the aforementioned hydraulic pipes. From that original idea, only the underground car park was deleted -because of the water table, its cost and the high risk of traffic collapse derived from its use-, as well as the waterfall in the Barranco de Tapia.
