Tuesday, October 10, 2023, 2:37 p.m.
They have not failed. What was promised two weeks ago as another slow and cumbersome bureaucratic process seems to have finally been resolved with some speed. The urgency was no less. This Tuesday the workers returned to the works at the Rubalcava Palace. They have not removed much, but at least it is a sign that the house may be able to leave its current deplorable state without further unforeseen events that paralyze its necessary rehabilitation.
What is still not clear is how long it will take to secure the structure again, almost miraculously standing. Municipal sources report that it depends on whether the neighborhood returns to normal. Last Friday, given the risk of falling debris, the City Council announced the closure to traffic of the two main roads that cross the Rabaloche: Hospital and Francisco Díe streets.
“They are taking the previous steps, preparing to restart the works, installing the fencing and adapting the areas of action,” they explain. The truth is that the wandering of workers and technicians through the accesses has caught the attention of neighbors eager to be able to drive their car again and not take a tedious detour to access their homes and garages.
The current problem with the building, as LA TRUTH has learned, is in the piloting. This is nothing more than a technique by which the foundations of the building are anchored through piles to the substrate or harder layer of the soil. In the case of the Rubalcava Palace, this level is very deep so the construction company has deemed it necessary to introduce more of these micropiles to reinforce the structure. A change that, evidently, was not foreseen in the initial project.
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Furthermore, the ground on which the building sits is far from being ideal, since the water table is very high as the house is elevated on land into which several ravines flow down Mount San Miguel. Also, before the channeling of the Segura, the river passed very close to the site.
To make matters worse, according to the councilor of Cambiemos and Heritage expert, Leticia Pertegal, the materials that the marquises used at the beginning of the last century for its construction were far from the best. Even so, Rubalcava is almost a survivor, having gone through not only a disastrous intervention in 2009 that destroyed his salons, but also the Lorca earthquake and two very destructive disasters, especially the last one in 2019.
Overrun
Be that as it may, the reality is that the palace works have necessarily become more expensive and now exceed four million, far from the 3.8 million in which they were awarded. Hence, the current PP-Vox government team had to urgently obtain a credit modification of 3.3 million to replenish the budget for the works, stopped by Actúa at the end of last July due to this economic issue. It is also not ruled out that this process will have to be repeated and more money taken from the municipal treasury if, as everything seems to indicate, the European Edusi funds are lost at the end of this year.
Work on the Rubalcava Palace began last March with the clearing of the gardens. The objective of the work is very clear: to remove the Palace from the well of the Red List of Heritage, which it entered in 2016, and return the mansion to its former splendor. The current project aims to be comprehensive. The objective is to reinforce the foundation and the stairs to remove it from its current situation of instability. It is also planned to replace wrought iron and restore ornamental elements such as the plasterwork and moldings of its noble rooms.
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