Meshes on balconies, nets on other facades, humidity, occasional detachments and broken cornices are some of the evidence of the poor condition of Plaça Reial de Barcelona. To stop the process of degradation that has been plaguing the square for years, the City Council yesterday presented a comprehensive rehabilitation plan that includes all the facades and porches. The aim is to recover the original image of the square, including the original, more intense and bright colours. The City Council will take care of all the procedures and management and will open a line of subsidies to cover up to 45% of the cost of the works to the owners.
It is planned to tender and award at the beginning of 2025 to start work in the middle of the year. “The estimated cost is 3.2 million, part of which will be covered by subsidies from the City Council and another by the owners through quotas. It’s a collaboration between private individuals and the administration,” explained the Consistory’s chief architect, Maria Buhigas, yesterday. The expected duration is about 18 months. The Municipal Institute of Urban Landscape (IMPU) will be responsible for drafting the executive project, at no cost to the owners. Afterwards, the Municipal Institute of Urban Planning (IMU) will charge each owner the cost of the works in several installments depending on the dimensions of the facade.
In parallel, and through the IMPU, the City Council will open a line of subsidies of up to 45% of the amounts that each owner must pay (with a limit of up to 50,000 euros per facade). After several preliminary meetings, yesterday afternoon the municipal government presented the plan to the owners and traders of the square: “They are aware of the advantages that the City Council assumes to be in charge of all the procedures”, assured Buhigas.
The Council plans to rehabilitate all the facades and porches without exception, including all the wide variety of owners who live together in this square: communities of neighbors, individual owners with homes, offices, tourist flats, studios, a hotel, shops, restaurants… The latter can also qualify for subsidies to renovate and adapt the exterior of the premises.
This comprehensive rehabilitation of Plaça Reial – the last one dates back forty years – will give continuity to the redevelopment works of the Rambla, in a global action that aims to revitalize this entire section of Ciutat Vella.
The action will be taken by declaring the square an area of ??urban regeneration. “We have been working on the project for some time, we have previous studies of the current state of conservation and how they were originally”, explained Buhigas. In fact, the tender for the preliminary work was held in October 2022. At that time, the City Council expected to start the comprehensive rehabilitation between 2023 and 2024.