Barcelona City Council still does not know what to do with 18 commercial premises that it bought back in 2021 in order to facilitate the opening of local businesses. Then, at that time, the deputy mayors, Jordi Martí and Jaume Collboni, announced that the socio-common government had spent around 17 and a half million euros in the acquisition of 35 ground floor apartments throughout the city, which would soon rent them at a much lower price. to the market to people willing to open traditional businesses, so that in this way the City Council would combat the commercial monoculture that impoverishes Barcelona so much. We are talking about the Amunt Persianes program.
And among these 18 establishments that are still in limbo is El Ingenio, the historic business in the Gòtic neighborhood that closed permanently in 2019. The City Council spent one and a half million on the purchase of these apartments of nearly 500 m2, but has not yet found any project that would bring it back to life. And on top of that, now he has to spend another 600,000 to renovate it.
The City Council believes that this location has not yet received any request, mainly due to its poor condition and the cost of its adaptation. So it began an emergency process to undertake works as soon as possible to guarantee its safety and the protection of its heritage elements. These works should be ready at the beginning of next year. And Rosa Cardona, former owner of El Ingenio, receives the news with some surprise.
“Well,” he says, “before the work starts we will have to empty the premises. We still have a lot of molds and figures there that are ours. In addition, some heritage elements also belong to us. Not all of them are from the City Council. What happens is that we have to come to an agreement with the City Council to enter, because they want to be present, and in this way we have not been able to come to an agreement for a few years. Let’s see if now that they are in a hurry to do the works we can understand each other…”
Unfortunately, the Amunt Persianes program became an administrative nonsense. The City Council, shortly after that joyful presentation, organized a few visits to many of these basements, but soon ignored the matter. In fact, he immediately stopped answering emails from interested parties. And after La Vanguardia detailed what was happening in November of last year, sources from the new socialist executive assured that the awards of the establishments would be “imminent.”
At this time none of the 35 acquired premises are in operation. And it is still not at all clear when those 18 whose selection, like that of El Ingenio, was deserted, will do so. Municipal sources indicate that once the City Council has definitively closed the award of the 17 premises that finally had proposals considered viable, it will consider what it does with the others.
“We are currently closing the project call procedure – City Hall sources now say – with the signing of the rental contracts of the 17 premises that have finally had proposals considered viable. We anticipate that the procedure will be closed before the summer.” Among the selected initiatives we do not find bakeries, hardware stores or haberdasheries… just a bookstore, a hairdresser, a pastry shop… and also a yoga center, a couple of coworkings, a theater academy, a merchants association, a space sociocultural dedicated to social transformation, a work, exhibition, and audiovisual production center for podcasters and streamers with ticketing service…
