The Ministry of Transport will put out to tender this week, through the Railway Infrastructure Administration (Adif), the comprehensive rehabilitation works of the Cartagena train station. The Government of Spain will invest about 6.8 million euros in this project, which will have an execution period of twenty months. According to sources from the state company, the works will begin in the second half of the year, in six to eight months.
The tender for these works, so that companies can present their offers, will be expected to appear in the Official State Gazette (BOE) tomorrow. Yesterday, the president of Adif, Isabel Pardo de Vera, signed the “resolution of approval of the file”, in which she authorizes the specifications for which the award will be governed and orders the publication of the corresponding official announcements.
This project of the Secretary of State for Transport, led by Pedro Saura, includes the complete reform of the passenger building, the reorganization of the environment and the installation of a new canopy on the platform at the top, with solar energy capture, as advanced in 2020 Adif to the Cartagena City Council.
It is also planned to remodel the interior of the railway building, located in the Plaza de México. It is about redistributing and ordering the waiting spaces, the ticket sales area, the toilets, the cafeteria and the car rental office. There will also be a new space for information and attention to travelers.
Modernist elements
It is also planned to create new areas for workers, such as changing rooms, rest room, area for security personnel and warehouse. The most characteristic elements, such as the false wood coffered ceiling and the modernist lamps, will be preserved.
The intervention will also include the stained glass window of the main façade, the original tiles and masonry. And they will build a new parking lot next to the north façade of the building, rearrange the taxi and bus stops and plant trees.
The sources consulted stressed that the rehabilitation of the station will not be limited to improving the building and its surroundings, but will also “allow an improvement in the services for railway passengers”, in terms of connections with Madrid and Levante to through the AVE.
“The tender for the comprehensive rehabilitation of the Cartagena station is an investment that must be made in relation to the importance that the Government of Spain gives to Cartagena in the Mediterranean High-Speed Rail Corridor,” they pointed out in the Ministry. And they added that the department that the Executive, whose transport portfolio José Luis Ábalos directs, “goes from the words of previous governments to the events.
“The Government meets Cartagena, as seen in the Amphitheater”
«The Government fulfills its commitments with Cartagena. The comprehensive rehabilitation of the station is a clear commitment to the recovery of heritage and the preservation of the city’s assets, “indicated sources from the Ministry of Transport. And they recalled that this policy “is already seen with the investment that has been financing in the Roman Amphitheater.” They thus alluded to the financing, with one million euros, of the excavation works at the site and the consolidation of the old bullring, where the Roman remains are found. This investment comes from the 1.5% cultural program, which the Ministry allocates to recover archaeological or historical assets, which in Cartagena will enhance its tourism sector.
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