--With a budget of 1.2 million euros, the new leisure space will have a saltwater pool, a meeting point in a dining room and its toilets in the part closest to the pier, and an area that will imitate the souks of La Geria in the area closest to the commercial dock
--Fajardo Feo has prioritized the values of Manrique's territory over Morales' project, which "did not comply with either the current Arrecife General Plan or the exception specifications of the administrative concession that Costas made in its day and of which Puertos is now competent"
The Minister of Tourism of the Government of the Canary Islands, Manuel Fajardo Feo, delivered this Friday morning to the Arrecife City Council the project that will definitively recover the Islote de la Fermina. After several attempts, the new model will break with the design of the architect Carlos Morales and faithfully respect the unfinished idea of César Manrique. For her part, the mayor of Arrecife, María Isabel Déniz, handed over to the regional Executive the urban integration project of the San Francisco Javier neighborhood, three years after the stoppage of its works.
Accompanied by the main councilors of the City Council's government group, both leaders pledged that the works for the execution of one and the other project will be awarded in the coming weeks, "before the end of the year".
On a day described by the mayor, María Isabel Déniz, as "very important for Lanzarote and, especially, for the people of Arrecife", the Minister of Tourism, who recalled that both projects are part of the Tourism Infrastructure Plan of the Government of the Canary Islands, announced that the works of the rehabilitation plan of the Islote de la Fermina or Islote del Amor will have a budget of 1,200,00 euros (about 200 million of the old pesetas), that is, 200,000 euros less than the previous project, the one designed by the architect Carlos Morales after being chosen after a public tender.
"With that surplus money, new investments demanded by Arrecife will be made in other tourist infrastructures," Fajardo said.
Morales versus Manrique
Although the counselor only hinted that it could perhaps be invested in modifying the bridge that connects the Islote itself with the Islas Canarias Park and the Arrecife Gran Hotel, what he did make clear is that the new project for this key piece in the urban fabric of Arrecife, designed by the Government of the Canary Islands, will respect as faithfully as possible the work that César Manrique left unfinished, although this does not in any case mean that there has been any confrontation with Carlos Morales, "as some have tried to provoke".
According to the Minister of Tourism, "in the specifications that were imposed in their day for the awarding of that work, freedom was given to the drafters, without any restrictions, to order the territory and make proposals. Fantastic" according to Fajardo Feo, who however pointed to "two key impediments" that made it impossible to materialize the project of Carlos Morales, despite the fact that he was the one who won the previous public tender.
"The project did not comply with either the current General Urban Planning Plan (PGOU) of Arrecife, but it also did not comply with the exception specifications of the administrative concession that Costas made in its day and of which the State Ports department is now competent," he said.
The Minister of Tourism's commitment is based on "the staging of the added value of the territory and the values that Manrique's philosophy generates par excellence in Arrecife, Lanzarote and wherever it is transmitted. Manolo Fajardo thinks that neither Arrecife nor Lanzarote can do without such capital, and prefers that we recover the initial project," the Minister specified.
Islote Project
Despite the fact that the Foundation that bears the artist's name has opposed the attribution of its authorship, the new Islote de la Fermina will include many of the elements that Manrique designed in his sketches.
Thus, the new leisure space, for the moment described by Fajardo as "almost finished but ruined infrastructures", will have a saltwater pool, a meeting point in a dining room and its toilets in the part closest to the pier, and in the area closest to the commercial dock will be located an area that will imitate the souks of La Geria.
Manrique's idea was to complement a leisure area for residents and tourists that, in the words of the Minister, "would unite the part of the old park already remodeled with the area of the infrastructure of the Arrecife Gran Hotel. Arrecife needs friendly points like this to satisfy the needs of free spaces, especially for our citizens," he added.
The City Council, which announces that it must implement an "affordable" municipal tax on the activities that take place in the Islote, now has to study what is the best formula for administrative concession, since the concession and administration rights of such a beautiful and strategic enclave correspond to the capital City Council.
San Francisco Javier
As for the rehabilitation plan of the San Francisco Javier neighborhood, budgeted at 700,000 euros (about 120 million of the old pesetas), after five months the Ministry is about to finish the procedures to terminate the contract with the UTE and the Facultative Directorate, whose disagreement has generated a series of administrative and legal problems "totally alien" to both institutions, which have delayed the works for up to three years, and of which both the Government of the Canary Islands and the Arrecife City Council exonerate themselves.
"At the same time that the termination of the contract was being processed, the City Council began to draft a project for an urban integration plan that would contemplate the consensus among the residents," clarified María Isabel Déniz, who thanked Fajardo for his "special sensitivity" towards the municipality.
The representatives of the City Council will soon visit the residents to "show their faces, justify the delay of the works and explain the new project", presumably headed by the Councilor for Tourist Infrastructures, Carmelo García Déniz.