Almost 22 years after the first announcementyesterday the remodeling project of the Plaza de la Patrona and its surroundings was announced. It is submitted to public information for 20 working days, with a bidding budget of 14,112,711 euros and an execution period of three years. The Council of Tenerife has been the promoter of this initiative since June 14, 2000, when it took on the commitment to convene a competition for ideas and to finance the entire cost of drafting and executing it.
The Island Corporation took a decisive step yesterday with the publication in the Official Gazette of the Province (BOP) of the announcement that includes the project that the Cabildo declared as strategic and called Remodeling of the Plaza de la Patrona and its surroundings, canalization of the channel and installation of hydraulic pipes. A document that required modification with respect to the original idea since it will not include the underground car parks that were announced. The technical studies carried out discourage them.
In 19,425 square meters of affected area, the work will be carried out in three phases between Paseo de San Blas and the end of Antón Guanche street. These three sectors are divided into the promenade (3,431 square meters), the Plaza de la Patrona (13,640 square meters) and the Plaza de los Artesanos (2,354 square meters).
«The reform becomes necessary as it is a key infrastructure for Tenerife»
Details.
A ramp building will connect Antón Guanche street and the square, it will house a museum of sacred and/or ethnographic art that will give an account, through the exhibition of dioramas, explanatory panels and relevant objects, of the population’s past and will serve as a multipurpose space. In addition, “it will function as a grandstand and a symbolic podium towards the square”, so that it can be used “as a fixed stage during religious and profane events”. In the area, under the existing stairs (to be removed), “it is foreseeable” the existence of archaeological remains in caves, which could be integrated into the project.
The sea front of the Paseo de San Blas and the Cueva de Los Camellos will be resurfaced and adapted and, in the second phase, that of the square, which includes creating a pergola along its north side and redirecting the bed of the Tapia ravine underground. The third contemplates repaving, pedestrianizing and modifying levels of Antón Guanche street “transforming it into a linear square at its upper end.”
ramp building.
This construction of 1,073 square meters will have a useful area of 836 square meters. In addition to bridging the gap between the old Town Hall and the square, at this level it will house the sacred museum, the multifunctional room, dressing rooms with toilets for exclusive use, public toilets linked to the square and the Tourist Office, among other dependencies.
Until 2025.
«The remodeling of the Plaza de la Patrona is going to be, at last, a reality». The president of the Cabildo, Pedro Martín, culminates a process that Ricardo Melchior began 22 years ago with the announcement that he made in the Meeting Room of the City Council of Candelaria together with the mayor of the moment, Rodolfo Afonso. The Cabildo de Tenerife will allocate more than 14 million euros -the payment of which will materialize in four annual installments, the last in 2025- “for a key infrastructure of the Island”, says Martín Domínguez, who maintains that, “not in vain, this space treasures a very important patrimonial and emotional value for all the people of Tenerife, in particular, and all the canaries, in general».
A ramp building will house a museum, will serve as a grandstand and a fixed stage and will provide the service area
The Plaza de la Patrona de Canarias, the Basilica, the Paseo de San Blas and the entire area make up a notorious space “not only among people who share the faith, but from a social point of view, since this place transcends a religious question and becomes, by tradition and customs, a place for the meeting of thousands of citizens every year».
The coordination between the Cabildo – through the Insular Council of Waters of Tenerife (Ciatf) – and the Candelaria City Council will be essential to carry out the work. The insular president announces that he hopes to tender the work “this year” and carry out a reform “necessary for many reasons.” He cites two. The first, “which appears on the list of key spaces on this Island, for locals and foreigners”; the second, because, “taking advantage of this circumstance, some issues related to the necessary Candelaria facilities will be improved”, and that package includes the channeling works for the riverbed that runs under the square as well as the implementation of hydraulic pipes to solve the problem of sanitation and discharges.
Joint work.
“We are getting closer to making this long-awaited project for Candelaria and Canarian citizens a reality. The work we have been doing in recent years is finally materializing!” These are the first words of the mayor of Villa Mariana. Mari Brito thanks “the involvement and work” of the Cabildo, its president, Pedro Martín, and “all the island technicians, as well as all the staff of the Candelaria City Council who have been involved and committed to this project.”
The relevance of this work for the municipality is such that “the remodeling of the square is a project that we have strongly demanded in recent years, as necessary and essential for Candelaria.” The councilor asserts the condition of the Villa as the abode of the Patron Saint of the Canary Islands and claims the project as “a benchmark for the entire Archipelago, assuming a before and after both in the Plaza and in all its surroundings, with a notable improvement thanks to to the investment of more than 14 million euros».
“It is an essential work for the municipality and a benchmark for the Archipelago”
At the end of the year.
Emilio Fariña, insular director of Territory Planning, leads the technical team that is about to complete an unexpected job. «When we arrived at the insular government we found ourselves with the need to give this project a boost; we needed to collect a series of sectoral reports, which have been achieved». As a result of this “enormous work to have the technical specifications,” he explains, the administrative specifications are already being finalized “to bring the approval of the beginning of the contracting file to the Island Government Council very soon.” That is the moment in which “we will begin to work on the tender so that, in a relatively near horizon, which happens by the end of the year, we will have the work tendered”. In correspondence with what was stated by the mayor of Candelaria, Fariña defends that “throughout this process, consensus with the City Council has been fundamental, to which I thank for its total collaboration.”
Authors.
The drafting team of the original project was made up of Ruiz Llarea & Asociados SL and Estudio Arquitectura Eustaquio Martínez SLPU, who assign to the latter the modification commissioned by the Cabildo in January 2018, to correct the deficiencies detected through the sectoral reports collected. Martínez García delivered the final version in August 2020, for whose design he had Engineering IGS Ingenieros Archipiélago, the archaeologist Alejandro Gómez; the topographer Alfredo Mora and, in terms of landscaping, with Ruralta SLP and the agricultural engineer Lidia María Hernández Morales.
