The José Luis Martínez-Almeida City Council approved this Tuesday in the Cibeles municipal plenary session a special plan to allow the expansion of uses on the plot that houses the Madrid Aquatic Center. A structure that was never operational after the failure of the Olympic attempts in the city, despite an investment of 99.6 million euros during the mayoralty of Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón.
The building is unfinished, with the works stopped since 2010 when there was still work worth 91.9 million euros. An Olympic corpse that has cost the public coffers very dearly. It is attached to the land that will house the future Atlético de Madrid Sports City, where the club chaired by Enrique Cerezo plans to develop new sports facilities, but also shopping and leisure centers, an artificial beach and even a hypothetical private university. .
The objective of accommodating some of these uses explains the council’s maneuver, according to the PSOE spokesperson in the municipal Urban Planning Commission, Antonio Giraldo. The councilor questions that the Aquatic Center is the subject of this special plan after it was left out of the modification of the general plan that diversified the uses in the plots already integrated into the Colchonera Sports City: “At that time we asked ourselves what differentiated it. Surely the answer is that it is a huge concrete structure that is very expensive and difficult to maintain, so at that time Atlético de Madrid were not sure if they wanted to get involved in it. Now they must have a project.”
“For the rest, what has changed in two years?” Giraldo asks. The socialist councilor also criticizes in conversation with Somos Madrid, and in the allegations presented by his party (already dismissed), that the expansion of uses is not accompanied by “a participatory process.”
The irregularities of a “hidden requalification”
The Almeida City Council itself defended the need for citizen consultation when the Municipal Socialist Group presented allegations against the lack of specificity about the future of the Aquatic Center, in a modification of the general plan that left its future in the air. The municipal government rejected this allegation, since “given the peculiar characteristics of the existing building, a specific study of its possibilities seems essential, in the preparation of which both the municipal services with responsibilities in the matter and the citizens must participate.” Giraldo also questions the lack of “a specific purpose” that justifies the expansion of uses: “It is not explained how it serves the general interest.”
Although the main “irregularity” that he observes is that the special plan does not even adhere to the conditions required to increase uses if, as in this case, they are defined as complementary. That is, they must respect the same accesses and schedules as the space where the main event takes place. That is, if the main use is a singular equipment (category that includes a sports facility, but also a university), the complementary use could be a cafeteria that provides service without expanding its opening or operating completely independently. The special plan approved this Tuesday, however, “makes more flexible” these requirements for the plot.
The socialist councilor speaks of “a covert reclassification in which a public endowment is withdrawn for private purposes.” He believes that the Aquatic Center grounds should have been converted into “a unique public facility, since Madrid does not have any of these characteristics.” Or, failing that, “allocate the plot directly to Atlético de Madrid and at least let the club develop a special plan that the City Council has now assumed.”
A destination that, for the moment, Almeida’s team does not take for granted. Sources from the Works area tell this newspaper that “any proposal that may reach the City Council will be studied and, if it is of interest to Madrid, it would be put out to public tender.” From Atlético de Madrid, in statements to El Español, they do admit that they are “studying possible uses to present to the Consistory.”
14 years as a ghost structure
The Madrid Aquatic Center stopped construction in 2010, two years before the date on which the capital would have hosted the Olympic Games had it succeeded in the first of its three failed attempts. “The development of the urban area called AOE 00.08 Olympic Park Western Sector was determined by the resulting scenario after 2012, in which the City was not designated as the venue for the Olympic Games for the year 2020,” the Department of Works to Somos Madrid.
The future Olympic stadium became Atlético de Madrid’s, the Metropolitano (now renamed Riyadh Air Metropolitano due to the sponsorship of a Saudi airline). Around it, various facilities will be integrated into the City of Sports, with plots transferred by the City Council to the colchonero club under very advantageous conditions: the red and white team will spend 53 million euros on public works in exchange for exploiting 205,000 square meters for 75 years . But the Aquatic Center, located a few meters away on these lands in the San Blas-Canillejas district, still had no function or planned works.
The Councilor for Works, Paloma García Romero, pointed out in March that the Executive of Manuela Carmena, who led the City Council between 2015 and 2019, was partially responsible for the anomalous situation of the Aquatic Center. From her point of view, it was precisely in this period when Cibeles had to respond to an infrastructure that began two decades ago: “The definitive suspension of the works on the aquatic center took place in 2012. In 2017, the contract was requested to be terminated by the construction company and in the face of silence from the Administration, in 2019, the “The courts ordered that the City Council agree to this resolution of the works contract.”
Compliance with this ruling triggered the processing of a series of administrative processes aimed at the resolution and liquidation of the contracts linked to the Aquatic Center, which included not only the construction contract itself, but also the tasks of Project Management and Safety and Security. Health. As a result of these procedures, a series of claims were filed which, according to the City Council, “have recently been definitively closed.”
“It was not until the complete completion of these procedures that the Works and Equipment Area has recovered the legal availability of the aquatic center and is in a position to analyze possible alternatives for the development of this infrastructure,” stated García Romero.
The great emblem of Olympic failure
In December 2004, with Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón at the head of the City Council, the contract worth 136.7 million euros was formalized between the Municipal Housing and Land Company of Madrid and the Temporary Union of Aquatic Center Companies, constituted by Dragados -Ortiz to raise the building. The agreement, with a duration of 27 months, was subject to subrogations since 2005 in favor of the company Madrid Infraestructura Deportivas, Espacios y Congresos. As of 2014, it was subrogated to the Madrid City Council itself.
The goal was to convert the facility into the headquarters of the main Olympic aquatic sports: swimming, synchronized swimming or water polo. A 22,000 square meter venue with capacity for 18,000 spectators, now converted into an empty (and cracked) shell. Its construction was stopped when the Madrid City Council had paid 99.6 million euros to the construction companies (Ortiz and Dragados) and almost half remained to be paid, since the final cost was calculated at 191.5 million despite the fact that the budget initial were those 137 million. The figure was thus inflated by more than 40%.
The work was stopped when the majority of its walls, the interior constructions or all of the finishes remained to be erected. There have been no changes since in 2010 the Dragados-Ortiz UTE expressed its desire “not to continue with the work carried out given that with the passage of time it may suffer significant deterioration and it cannot determine the damages, implications and costs derived from the suspension,” according to a municipal report.
Everything indicates that the new exploitation will involve the partial or total demolition of the built structure to erect another building that serves the interests of the winning entity. And the Royal Spanish Swimming Federation (RFEN) was betting in July in statements to this newspaper to “promote the project and give it appropriate use as an aquatic facility.” “We are obliged to fight for the Madrid Aquatic Center,” Fernando Carpena, president of the RFEN, said in 2019. That same year the federation presented a proposal to try to launch the facility with an investment of 30 million euros, with a possible bid to host the 2031 World Swimming Championships on the horizon. An initiative that was, once again, in vain.
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