This Monday the machines carry out the first earthworks in the green area of ??the Teatre Auditori Felip Pedrel in Tortosa (Tarragona) where a new annex building of more than 1,500 square meters will be built.
Thus begins the work to expand the cultural facility, a project that includes a third room with capacity for more than 300 people and the adaptation of the lobby to access the three rooms. The work will last twelve months.
The council has 2.5 million from the Ministry of Culture and 250,000 euros from the PUOSC to finance it. The Provincial Council of Tarragona has also granted aid of 950,000 euros to equip the new room, acquire retractable stands, and for a new air conditioning system in the large room and repair the leaks in the roof.
The work has been awarded for a value of 2.8 million euros to the company Construcciones Asensio. The management of the work has also been awarded to Soc Arquitectura e Ingeniería for an amount of 45,279 euros. Last week the preliminary work was carried out, the removal of trees and the uninstallation of lighting among others, and the backhoes are already working to prepare the land on which the new building measuring 1,568.98 square meters will be built.
The mayor, Jordi Jordan (PSC), highlighted that the municipal government “has taken all the steps” to be able to carry out the expansion of the Auditori, from the approval of the project to the bidding and awarding of the works.
He has also highlighted that they have financing from the three supra-municipal administrations and that, “practically, the entire project will be financed with these subsidies.”
Jordi Jordan has pointed out that the work has not been presented before to avoid “accusations of electoralism” and has rejected that they are “given lessons” by Junts por Tortosa, which accumulates “historical delays” in all the great works they carried out in the city, such as the Cathedral Square, the State Bridge, and especially the swimming pools.
“We regret this destructive opposition that does not remember the management that they have done in important works and that criticizes a performance when it had not yet begun,” he said.
For her part, the Councilor for Culture of Tortosa, Mar Lleixà, has detailed that the works will not affect the programming planned for the auditorium until the first half of July.
The Jazz Festival performances will be the last performances to take place until the reopening. For the Proto-fest that follows, alternative locations are already being sought with the festival management.
The teaching classroom of the Tortosa Museum, the Espai Moreira room – which must be equipped – or other outdoor heritage spaces will be the alternative settings where the performances will be programmed.
This will also be the case with the stable autumn theater program from now on. Lleixà has advanced that they are working on proposals that could fit into these alternative locations.
The mayor has asked the neighborhood for “patience” in the area due to the inconvenience that the works may cause and pointed out that a provisional location is also being sought for the Escola municipal de Teatre, in a “consensual” manner, while the works last.
