Malaga launches an international competition for the pedestrianisation of Paseo de los Curas and Plaza de la Marina. A jury of architects and engineers with representation from the City Council and the Port will choose six teams, which will have three months to present their proposals - The budget is 15 million euros.
Malaga City Council is looking for prestigious profiles to design the major pedestrianisation of the central section of the Coastal Plan, from the Cánovas del Castillo roundabout at the end of Paseo de los Curas to Manuel Agustín Heredia Avenue.
To this end, an international ideas competition has been launched to select the best urban planning project for the complete remodelling of the 71,500 square metres that will merge the historic centre with Muelle 2, giving an approximate surface area of 131,000 square metres for pedestrians. The estimated budget is 15 million euros (excluding VAT).
"This would be the way to link the historic centre with the port in a definitive way. Integrating the Park and the Palm Grove by creating a large green space of 85,000 square metres, breaking up the longitudinal functioning and generating more transversal movements", detailed the General Coordinator of Infrastructures and Projects of the Urban Planning Department, Pablo Otaola, who argues that this will eliminate a "scar" in the capital.
It is also intended to reinforce the position of the Plaza de la Marina as a meeting point for the East-West and North-South axes, once again strengthening the connection between the centre and the Malaga dock via Calle Larios and Molina Lario.
All this will happen, of course, after the works for the undergrounding of traffic - the whole Plan runs between the Gran Hotel Miramar and almost to the Guadalmedina river -, where the construction of infrastructures such as a transport interchange in Plaza La Marina, with a total cost of 400 million euros, is contemplated.
However, the road area between Paseo del Parque and the Alameda is outside the scope of the competition, so road traffic will not be affected. "Public transport will be boosted there. There may be reflections on private traffic," said the mayor, Francisco de la Torre, who commented on the possibility in the future that the undergrounding of the Litoral axis would absorb all private traffic and that the route between the Alameda and the Paseo del Parque would be limited to public transport.
Two phases and six pre-selected candidates
This competition will be divided into two phases. In the first phase, six multidisciplinary teams will be selected and will have 35 days to prepare a short curriculum, consisting of a report and five panels.
According to Pablo Otaola, the choice of teams will be based on the urbanisation projects, squares and green areas carried out in the last 15 years, the national and international awards they have won and the use of new technologies in the projects.
These six teams will receive a remuneration of 30,000 euros (plus VAT) to compensate for the cost of developing their proposals. Finally, the jury will select a single winner who will be awarded the contract to draw up the preliminary pedestrianisation project for an amount of 270,000 euros (plus VAT).
As for the composition of the jury, it will be made up of architects and engineers representing the City Council and the Port of Málaga.a. Specifically, the members will be: Carlos Rubio Basabe, president of the Port Authority of Malaga; Marta Arias González, representing the Official College of Architects of Malaga; Alejandro Luis Grindlay Morenorepresenting the Association of Civil Engineers; Salvador Moreno Peralta, Architect; José Pedro Alba García, Civil Engineer; Pablo de Otaola Ubieta, General Coordinator of Infrastructures and Projects of Malaga City Council; and Francisco Javier Pérez de la Fuente, Director of the Department of Architecture and Infrastructures of the Municipal Urban Planning Department.
To make this contract official, the Promálaga board must be convened, which will be the body in charge of launching the tender. "We are in the middle of February, before the end of the month it has to be approved and put out to tender," said De la Torre.
Funding
According to Pablo Otaola, the City Council's objective is to first have all the preliminary projects included in the Málaga Litoral Plan "to have a very clear vision" in terms of costs and problems. Afterwards, he said, the council will reflect on the best way to finance it, either with European funds, for example, or through a concession to a private company.
Francisco de la Torre has advanced that the City Council is already "working" on it and there are open conversations with both the Junta and the central government. "There is an open response but not yet closed. It will depend on the Next Generation funds but also on the community framework.
The information in this article has been obtained from the following newspaper La Opinión de Málaga
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