Santa Cruz City Hall Revives Former Headquarters for 4 Million Euros

The Santa Cruz City Hall is bringing its former headquarters on General Antekera Street back to life! It will house important services: public safety, emergency services, mobility, and accessibility. And, as before, the Citizen Service Center will reopen next to the City Hall. This was announced by the city's mayor, José Manuel Bermúdez.

Last Monday, the city council gave the green light to start the tender for the renovation work in this building. It has been out of service since 2019 due to its poor condition. 4,041,625 euros will be allocated for the restoration, and the work is scheduled to be completed in eight months.

Bermúdez explained that after the renovation, the building will be able to accommodate 187 city hall employees. The total area of the premises will be 3,300 square meters. This will improve the working conditions of various services and modernize the emergency response system. There will be a Cetra (civil defense) hall and a Mobility Control Center. This will free up space in other buildings where these services are currently located.

The Advisor on Municipal Heritage, Javier Rivero, noted that most of the money will go to electrical networks, telecommunications, and air conditioning – almost two million euros. Significant expenses are also planned for carpentry (447,184 euros) and cladding (398,403 euros).

How everything will be located: the Citizen Service Center will be located on the ground floor with waiting, registration, and online service areas. There will also be computer rooms with an area of 135 square meters.

The public safety, emergency services, mobility, and accessibility services will operate on the second floor. And on the third floor, there will be mobility and emergency control rooms, which are currently located in the La Financiera building.

Rivero emphasized that this floor will become an exemplary emergency management center in the Canary Islands. The traffic light management system will be updated, and a new Emergency Operations Coordination Room (Sacop), a Cetra hall, a Mobility Control Room, a negotiation room, a civil defense warehouse, and offices for emergency specialists will appear.

The Main Directorate of Organization, which reports directly to the mayor, will be on the fourth floor. It will employ 56 people who deal with issues of organization, open government, citizen participation, transparency, modernization, internal regulations, data management, and support for the mayor's activities.

The Autonomous Organization of Culture will occupy the fifth floor. And on the sixth floor, a warehouse and workshop for civil defense and IT will be set up. There will be offices, cleaning rooms, telecommunications rooms, and special acoustic panels to prevent echoes.