The bank is old, but the environment is almost new. Anyone sitting in the once abandoned Plaça Gomila in Palma can hardly believe their eyes: First of all, there is the so-called Gomila Center, built in 1979 by the architect Pere Nicolau. Painted with white flowers, the complex shines in a fresh glow. Over the past few decades, it had fallen into disrepair: the plaster was peeling from the walls, to call it an eyesore was almost an understatement.
Now the complex fits into the redesigned, almost finished square. There are also some new buildings: On the one hand, there is a green building in the Bauhaus style, in which a cafe will be opened below. A bluish color, which is located in a once undeveloped site, will probably rent a flower shop, and a bright red a bakery, which is financed by the well-known shoe company Camper. An architect’s office and an Italian restaurant are located in the Gomila Center. At the end of the place where only a few years ago, before Latinodisco, there were drugs and where the homeless were many, is a four-star hostel called Joe’s Boutique Hotel. Apartments for rent for residents have been erected in the upper areas of renovated and new buildings, including some specially designed for people with disabilities. Everything should be ready by October.
But it’s not all construction work: the excavation pit for a new indoor pool is being dug on the nearby Aigua-Dolça-Straße to the Paseo Marítimo. With the fundamental transformation, the area is associated with the best times: until the early 1990s you could eat well in a suit on the terraces of good restaurants, then the decline began.
Plaça Gomila is just one of several major construction projects in Palma that are already underway or will start soon. Another project is the new construction of the Club de la Mar and – a very big job – the eagerly awaited demolition along with the additional greenery of the Paseo Marítimo. In addition, Plaça d’Espanya will be redesigned from September: Among other things, the slippery floor tiles, which take away the charm of the square, will be removed.
And then there is the Parc de la Mar, which, like the Gomila Centre, was designed by the architect Pere Nicolau. Here, the city wants to replace all the Marès floor tiles from the 1980s, which are now worn and faded. They want to put more resistant gray tiles there. Phase 1 south of the water fountain began in July and is expected to take five months: excavators have meanwhile excavated a large area of soil and the new slabs will be installed soon. It is later planned that the remaining intact areas of the Parc de la Mar will undergo the same radical treatment.
While many parts of the city are busy with work, another important place, Plaça Major, is in limbo: beneath its surface, an uncomfortably dark shopping center has been empty for about three years. A competition of ideas for the future use of the rooms, which precedes a conversion, has not even started.
