During the visit, Héctor Izquierdo stressed that “the Monterrey Hotel represents very well what we want the reconstruction of La Palma to be: to recover our heritage, but to do so also thinking about the future and the opportunities we can generate for the young people of the Island”. The Commissioner also stressed that “behind a work like this there is also an important human effort in a particularly complex context, marked by island status and by a reconstruction that has simultaneously required professionals and companies to act on roads, private homes, infrastructure and other public facilities.”
The execution of the works has been conditioned, as explained during the visit, by the difficulty of having certain specialized profiles, especially in trades such as carpentry or masonry, as well as by the times of arrival of materials to La Palma. “The reconstruction has generated an enormous demand for labor and has forced the sharing of human and material resources among many actions that advance at the same time, which is why reaching 90% of the execution of a project of this complexity has an added value,” said Izquierdo.
The intervention involves an investment of around 7 million euros contracted to date and has a choral financing from the different public administrations. It involves the State, through the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO), with 4.27 million euros already executed, and the Ministry of Industry and Tourism, which has contributed one million euros, in addition to investments from the Government of the Canary Islands, the Cabildo de La Palma and the City of El Paso. The project is part of a broader effort to recover the Monterrey environment, to return a space of great historical value to the municipality and turn it into an infrastructure linked to training and tourism.
The future establishment recovers the memory of the Monterrey Hotel, built in 1922, which for much of the 20th century was a reference for the social and cultural activity of El Paso and the Aridane Valley and which remained closed since 2006. The new Hotel, combined with training, will have 33 double rooms - of which three are suites - and about 5,000 square meters of surface. For students, there are two rooms with three beds per stay, in addition to an educational classroom.
