Barcelona has spread throughout its geography a good handful of urban ‘pongos’. Buildings, plots, equipment, infrastructures, squares, streets, parks…, places, public or private, that have chronicled an undesirable situationespecially for the neighbors. In the upper zone, surely they remember the Manén Auditorium on Balmes street, that small Liceu that remained half-built for more than 60 years, until Balañá built some cinemas. The railway scar of La Sagrera, the Plaza de los Països Catalans, the old headquarters of the Department of Justice in Casp with Pau Claris, the site of what were the Courts of Lluís Companys or the old headquarters of the Government Delegation next to Pla de Palau. But from time to time there are things that get out of the quagmire. Between Poble-sec and the RavalFor example, in recent times, “three black holes” have been resolved, as defined by the neighbors: the Three Xemeneies, the site of Drassanes and the bad coexistence that the Brisas nightclub.
Another thing, and now we will go in parts, is that the outcome is the one desired by the parties involved, but in these three enclaves, almost stuck together, a situation that had been dragging on for some time has been unraveled. The most recent case is that of the Three Xemeneies. The Barcelona City Council reported on Tuesday the agreement reached with the company that owns two of the three buildings in the square. After a long negotiation, the promoter Conren Tramwaywhich thanks to one requalification You will see how the value of your plot goes from 13 to 35.5 million euros, you will take charge of the reform of the square and will give up the Llac buildingthe smallest, to house the headquarters of the Center for Operational Coordination and Emergencies of Barcelona (cecor). It will also give six million for affordable housing and equipment in the neighborhood.
Coexistence
Abandonment is usually linked to an urban evil that is greatly feared by the neighbors: incivility. The Tres Xemeneies park was no exception. Rather the opposite, since it concentrated all the possible forms of the worst interpretation of the word coexistence. The residents say that the nights from Thursday to Sunday are a mess of dirt and low crime fed by a elusive urbanism and full of nooks and crannies. For all these reasons, the Poble-sec neighborhood association demands that the square be closed at night, but it seems unlikely because, as the district councilor assures, Mark Serrait is a place “without walls that is not segregated from the environment”.
A few meters away, separated by Palaudàries street, is the old disco Brisas, renamed in recent times as Ken Club. It closed in mid-February, just as Betevé progressed, and leaves behind a trail of fights and sanctioning files, in addition to the death of a young man, in October of last year, in front of the establishment. Throughout this façade, up to Puig i Xoriguer street, a student’s residence. The workshop attached to the disco (in the middle of the pandemic) and the gas station also closed Petrogusta (old Ubach), which was one of the most expensive in the city, stopped supply fuel last week. Everything is already closed, so the promoter, Alba Spanish Propco SLUyou can now comply with the urban plan approved in January 2022 that enables you to build a student hotel with 400 beds.
despite the government
The update of the special urban plan for tourist accommodation (PEUAT) vetoes the proliferation of residences like this, but since the permit was prior to the modification of the regulations, it can be lifted without problems, which has generated not a little discomfort to the government of Ada Colau. Nor has it sat well that the third point in the process of being resolved, on the Drassanes site, is on its way to becoming, also, a huge student residence. There is another, by the way, halfway Paral·lel, on the Montjuïc side, named Beyoo, also huge, and one more in Nou de la Rambla, 250 meters from Drassanes. There was a hotel, but after years of struggle between the council and promotercourts included, tourists have finally been banned to welcome students (350 places in two buildings).
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The solar accumulates 20 years of dirt and incivility and the neighbors have experienced the plot with a certain division between those who requested social apartments (the UGT bought the plot at the end of the 90s but a reclassification increased its value and started a chain of purchases and sales) and those who thought that a hotel would give commercial life and security to the neighborhood. Well, neither one thing nor the other. The excavators are already working and the idea is to have everything ready in a couple of years.
Arnau Theater
There are three ‘pongos’ with the future clarified, something is something. In the same area, however, the issue of the Arnau Theater, bought by Jordi Hereu on the eve of the 2011 municipal elections for two million euros and which continues without progress despite having an approved executive project. Problem: you don’t have an assigned budget, so you can’t talk about a schedule. Not far away is also the solar of the old Talia Theateracquired by the consistory through the expropriation for 5.7 million euros in December 2021. The plot should be used for housing and equipment. There he is, feral. Another ‘I put’.