The Santa Cruz City Council has put out to tender the refurbishment of a plot located in the Juan XXIII neighborhood, at the end of Juan Albornoz Sombrita street, in the surroundings of the Nuestra Señora de Candelaria University Hospital (the Residence), to convert it into a provisional car park with 75 spaces. The base tender budget for this work is 616,611 euros, and the execution period will be four months, from the signing of the reconsideration act. Bids may be submitted until September 12.
As explained by the mayor of Public Services, Carlos Tarife, “this is a necessary car park, because with the suppression of the emergency car parks of the Hospital de la Candelaria, the area of Juan Albornoz Sombrita street, and the neighborhood of Juan XXIII in general, it has been collapsed by the influx of users and people who visit the hospital center “.
The first deputy mayor also details that they have put out the tender and the project contemplates “about 70 parking spaces, and also entails the asphalting of that street.” “If everything goes on time -he adds-, we hope that in October the work on the car park can begin.”
According to the project, the space will be divided into two levels or platforms, so that the upper one, with about 1,000 square meters, will house 17 parking spaces, two of them for people with disabilities. Access to the car park is located on this level, through which the car park will also be abandoned.
The lower level will have an area of 3,000 square meters, which will accommodate a total of 58 parking spaces. To go from one level to another, two ramps will be articulated, both parallel to the layout of Juan Albornoz Sombrita street.
Initially, the forecast was that there would be a third level, and to be able to have around 150 parking spaces, something that, urbanistically, as the City Council pointed out at the time, was not possible, so it has been reduced to two platforms.
Access control
The project provides for the incorporation of everything necessary to carry out access control, from the entry and exit barriers, through the collection booths, ticket issuance booths or license plate readers. This, however, points out Tarife, “does not imply that parking will be charged. That is something that is not decided. At the moment, it will not be charged ”.
As for the lighting that will be available in the temporary parking area, it will be made up of luminaires with photovoltaic panel and battery for road lighting, with six-meter-high columns.
The intervention also provides for the creation of an accessible pedestrian itinerary that links the car park with the nearest urban area, and especially with the El Rosario road, in the vicinity of the Hospital de la Candelaria. For this, the four sections of sidewalk on the left bank of Juan Albornoz Sombrita street will be enabled, so that they will be made wider to guarantee the passage of pedestrians. The total surface of the sidewalk that is going to be enlarged amounts to just over 780 square meters.
A space that would also serve as a deterrent ‘parking’
As stated in the introduction to the project, its main purpose is to solve the deficit of existing spaces in the area of Juan Albornoz Sombrita street, and the entire neighborhood, and it is added that it could also be a possible complement of the parking offer associated with the Hospital de la Candelaria, which ran out of emergency car parks almost a year ago. It is added that, to a lesser extent, it can be seen as a deterrent parking lot for movements entering from the North motorway or TF-5 (southbound), since the tram stop is right in front of the Residence.
