The Generalitat activates the Unique Building Plan in the Camp de Tarragona and has already started talks with the City Council to rehabilitate the old prison as the headquarters for all its territorial services.
The Government of Catalonia has launched the Unique Building Plan in the Camp de Tarragona. The Government delegate in Tarragona, Lucía López Cerdán, has confirmed to diaridetarragona.com that the regional administration has already begun discussions with the Tarragona City Council to address the conditions and requirements necessary to rehabilitate the old prison and convert it into the future headquarters for all its territorial services.
"The project is on the table, with the priority of going to the old prison," states the top representative of the Generalitat in the region, who emphasises that the site is "an ideal location," in an "expansion area, very close to the Plaça Imperial Tàrraco."
The facility ceased to operate as a prison in mid-2015, when the penitentiary centre of Mas d'Enric began operations. In an initial phase, the facility was left empty, until it later housed the territorial services of Justice. Recently, part of its facilities has also been adapted to conduct large-scale trials, such as the Inipro case, which begins this week following preliminary matters on September 18.
Lucía López notes that discussions with the council focus, among other issues, on the protection of the facility as a Local Cultural Interest Asset (BCIL), designed by architect Josep Monravà in 1942, as well as the available square metres and the uses that can be assigned to it.
It was previously revealed that plans included adapting 30,000 square metres for the 900 employees currently working in the 20 territorial services of the Generalitat in Tarragona.
"It is on the table. The old prison is the priority option"Lucía López, Government delegate
"There aren't many spaces of this magnitude in the city. We will need to find a way to integrate the protected assets into the project. It has symbolic and historical value," indicates López, who thus rules out the possibility of the Generalitat requesting the total de-protection of the building.
The Generalitat delegate points out that the unique building project in the Camp de Tarragona is an initiative that is being outlined for the next legislative term, when the Government has finalised the properties it currently has underway in Central Catalonia (in Manresa) and Lleida.
"For now, we have a preliminary report. We will now need to start studies to see the space we will require," says López, who is also clear that, in the meantime, the Sant Francesc building will be remodelled to improve accessibility, with an investment of over three million euros. The Casa Gasset in the Plaça dels Carros has also been adapted as the central headquarters for the offices.
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