Azca, the financial center of Madrid hit by crime: “Women feel attacked”

Around a dozen nightlife venues are spread across this enclave that has three levels. The intermediate zone, known as the Azca Bajos, is the most dangerous, the one with the greatest number of nightclubs and ‘afters’ and the one that has been most degraded by the passage of time and the lack of maintenance. The vomitoriums, underground galleries prey to darkness regardless of whether it is midday and a bright sun hits the street, are today a focus of dirt where several homeless people have also found shelter.

In the early hours of last Friday, December 27, a 21-year-old young man was seriously injured after being stabbed in this area. He was transferred with advance notice to the hospital in La Paz. The first crime of the Trinitarios in Madrid was, precisely, in this area of ​​the capital, in 2006. Today, although the frequency of brawls in Azca has decreased, there is still a place that members of this Latin gang usually frequent.

Thefts are also an issue that does not let residents let their guard down for even a minute. Last November, Municipal Police officers arrested a 19-year-old Moroccan for snatching – using the Ronaldinho method – a gold chain from another who was partying at the venues in this area. Of course, thefts are not something that only occurs at night, since neighbors are also aware that daylight does not prevent these criminal acts from being committed.

The residents and merchants in the area are already accustomed to these same events and in conversations between the workers of the companies based in this complex you can also hear advice about which routes it is preferable to avoid. «It’s crazy to pass by here. “We women see ourselves attacked, especially the younger ones who leave work late,” Laura Morilla, spokesperson for Comunazca, the association of presidents of neighborhood communities on Orense Street, tells this newspaper. In 2023, these passageways were also the scene of a sexual assault by one of the homeless people who lived there on a 27-year-old girl who also slept on the ground floor.

Neighborhood demands to the authorities are mainly about improving security. For this reason, in the meetings that have been held with those responsible for these spaces, the installation of a police stationafter closing the one there was. “The simple fact of seeing patrol cars parked in the area and uniformed agents could do a lot to reduce tension,” explains Manuel Rodriguez, president of Pro-Azca, an association of merchants and companies in this area. Also consider that it is not only about having control over this area, but it would also “provide coverage” for the floods of people that circulate around the Santiago Bernabéu, located a few minutes walk away. “The improvement of this entire area will mean that there will be many more people and potentially more conflicts,” explains Rodríguez.

Although the main neighborhood concern is citizen safety, so is the maintenance of a complex in which it is easy to find bottle glass in its corners and plastic bags and cans in its gardens. “This degradation is not viable so that the people who live and work here can use it,” laments Morilla.

nightlife

However, the neighborhood crusade is with nightlife venues. For years, the owners have taken their fight to court against the multiple nightclubs in this enclave and those who “see no place” in the project agreed upon by the city council, the companies and the neighbors. «These types of businesses cannot be in a completely residential area. We cannot rest, we cannot sleep and we even have children treated by psychologists,” says the Comunazca spokesperson. Not even winning a criminal case has served to stop the situation they still suffer. “They changed the name of the company and reopened,” he says.

Azca represents a problem that has passed through the offices of different mayors of the capital. From Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón to José Luis Martínez-Almeida passing through the Carmena era. After several cleaning rounds and renderings of preliminary projects that never seem to come true, an agreement has finally been reached to clean the financial heart of Madrid of any trace of degradation.

On November 8, the delegate of Works and Equipment, Paloma García Romero, representing the Madrid council, more than a dozen leading entities – among which are El Corte Inglés, Merlin Properties, Mutua Madrileña, Pontegadea or the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office, dependent on the Ministry of Industry and Tourism, have signed, together with neighbors and small merchants, what could be the definitive agreement.

A long-awaited project

This reform will involve a comprehensive action because it will address all public use spaces that serve citizens. It will also be a “unitary action” that will seek to guarantee the coordination of the action, and “definitive”, because not only has a major reform been agreed, but it is proposed that its maintenance be carried out through a “coordinated mechanism that allows “The investment that is going to be made maintains its value for the benefit of all.”

Of course, residents should not be impatient because the dates being discussed could extend the inauguration of a new Azca for the next legislature. The idea is to prepare a basic project in about seven or eight months, and from there, make the final project and put out to tender the contract for project drafting and execution of works, for which there would be approximately another year.

Although, until now, the exact amounts related to the investment are unknown, it has been determined that there will be public-private collaboration in what is expected to be million-dollar figures. The city council of the capital will finance the part corresponding to its ownership of the space, around 70% of the 80,000 square meters in which it is planned to intervene; and the private companies will bear the cost of the remaining 30%.

Although the works will not begin until 2026, the first works can already be detected by the companies that own the buildings in this enclave, the purchase of others and the opening of luxury restaurants that are beginning, according to the neighbors, to slowly change the degraded ecosystem compared to a year ago. Thus, at the foot of the Picasso Tower, an exclusive restaurant that also has shows was inaugurated in 2024. “There are already changes in the area,” says the president of Pro-Azca, who has also been in charge of acting as an intermediary receiving investment funds interested in this space. “They are fighting for copper,” he insists.

As long as the works do not get underway, this project that has been in the works for years will still remain an illusion for some. The residents and merchants who have been fighting for a reform for decades are “optimistic” about the “efforts” that have been made to turn this complex into a different direction. They now hope to stop considering their neighborhood the “Bronx of Madrid” and compare themselves to something more similar to Manhattan.