The current international crisis situation due to the invasion of Ukraine, which has caused an increase in prices and delays in transport, is affecting the construction work of the two new housing blocks in the first phase of the urbanization project of The Prickly Pearswhich accumulate a delay of between 2 and 3 months, so the new estimate is that the works will be completed during the second half of 2023.
This was stated by Antonio Pérez, architect responsible for the Technical Area of the municipal company for Housing and Services of La Laguna (muvisa) of the City Council, the managing body responsible for this action, based on the data handled by the contract, which is updated as the international situation evolves.
“When we started to come out of the pandemic, there was a situation of collapse with the containers. That is a little better, but now the raw materials have risen, and it is not that the materials are lacking, but that they take time to arrive, and all of that makes the work a little late, ”he explained in this regard.
In this sense, he emphasized that “in the construction work there is no major problem, work is being done, there is no technical reason or of any kind” that causes the delay, but rather the international situation.
At present, the works are more advanced in the building of the 79 dwellings and “above ground, above the garage floors, there are already six floors of slabs and floors, and four more remain. At the rate we are going, we are talking about the end of August-mid-September being there”, indicated Antonio Pérez.
While the other block, of 118 homes, is growing a little slower and at the moment “is going through the roof of the first floor”.
Based on this, the architect recalled that the initial forecast was that both buildings “would be between the first and second quarters of 2023, and that we already know at this time that, unless the war ends and everything improves, the most likely is that we do not arrive before the middle of 2023, but throughout the second half of 2023 ”.
The demolition works of the ten blocks that made up the first phase of the project began in January 2021 and ended approximately a month later, after which work began to remove the rubble, excavate and clear the plots and, subsequently, those of foundations and to raise the structures of both buildings with the pillars and slabs.
