“An unprecedented bet,” Mayor Natalia Chueca (PP) said in the last municipal campaign about her flagship project, the Smart Sports City. And unprecedented will continue at the end of his current mandate, since the funds reserved for this initiative will be allocated mostly to the public extra cost of the new Romareda. This was stated last Friday by the councilor herself, who considers that the “priority” is the football stadium, compared to a venue that was going to host sports such as athletics, swimming, basketball or gymnastics.
“It is one of my strategic projects for Zaragoza,” the then PP candidate for Mayor said on her website on May 4, 2023. The objective, he pointed out, was to “attract major sporting events” but, at the same time, convert the venue “into a Specialized Sports Technique Center in which the Aragonese Sports Federations can improve their technification programs.” It is located in the North Parking of the Expo, on the plot where the provisional field that will house Real Zaragoza is going to be built starting next season and while La Romareda is under construction.
The project has always aroused the misgivings of Vox – whose votes are necessary for the PP to achieve majorities – which considers that the Sports City would compete in “resource acquisition” with the construction of the new Romareda. Collaterally, the mayor has ended up agreeing with the far-right group, for which the Smart Sports City was an “idea” of the then mayor of Podemos Fernando Rivarés that the councilor “surprisingly” liked.
Now the initiative is not ruled out, but the momentum in this mandate “will be complicated,” Chueca said in his appearance. “It is not dying as a project, but due to its execution capacity, the Romareda has been prioritized. It is postponed,” he added.
In fact, the initiative sees municipal contributions reduced to minimum during this four-year period. And, if it is finally carried out, it should be a much less ambitious project – at least, at a budgetary level – in accordance with the multi-year reorganization that the PP government team intends.
Initially, 52.2 million euros were going to be allocated to the Smart Sports City in seven years. This year 200,000 euros were reserved, to which 2,000,000 would be added in the next year, while between 2026 and 2030 it had planned to spend 10 million euros each year.
Faced with this, with the change derived from the extra cost in La Romareda, the investment allocated to the project would drop to 10.4 million: this year the contribution of 200,000 euros is maintained; in 2025 it is reduced to another 200,000 euros; In 2026 and 2027, 2,000,000 euros are contemplated each year, and by 2028 the contribution would reach 6,000,000 euros.
The mayor, however, explained last Friday that the portable stadium, with a capacity for 20,000 seats, which is located on the grounds of what was intended to be the Smart City, will be integrated into the future complex, located very close to the soccer fields. the Aragonese Football Federation and the Aragonese Sports Center. But, even adding the 15.3 million euros that the modular field will involve, the total investment remains far from what was announced.
An aquatic center, an athletics center and a sports hall
The Smart Sports City initially planned by the PP would have a mini football stadium, that is, an intermediate-sized field with a capacity for 4,500 spectators, expandable to 8,000. The creation of an Aquatic Sports Center was also proposed, which will include an indoor Olympic pool, another for swimming and water polo, as well as one for high jumping and another outdoor pool for other uses. Its capacity would be for nearly 2,000 people.
The Sports City Athletics Center would have a 200-meter covered track with six lanes for official competitions and a capacity of 2,500 spectators. This facility would connect with the existing Aragonese Sports Center – ‘Corona de Aragón’ Athletics Stadium.
Likewise, a multi-sports pavilion was planned with a central court for international basketball, indoor soccer-handball and volleyball competitions, with a capacity of 7,000 spectators; also several multi-sports halls for artistic and rhythmic gymnastics, skating, weightlifting, fencing, judo, karate, taekwondo, boxing and kickboxing, sports dance, badminton and table tennis and an Olympic climbing wall.
In the case of the outdoor courts, they will be used for sports such as basketball, indoor soccer-handball, volleyball, beach volleyball, badminton, paddle tennis and petanque. Two outdoor venues for archery and Olympic shooting will be added to these.
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