Palma.It has not taken the Partido Popular long to raise the issue of the future of the abandoned GESA building which many people consider an eyesore along Palma's sea front which is going to visually clash with the new convention centre and hotels once completed.
Because of its once avant garde architecture, the former Socialist-led coalition on the Council of Majorca decided to have the building officially catalogued and therefore protected.
However, since the electricity company GESA moved to its new headquarters, the building has fallen into wrack and ruin and was once an enormous squat for many of Palma's homeless.
It has since been completely boarded up and closed off to the general public.
The former council did have a plan of turning the building into a new social centre, but nothing ever happened and it continues to remain empty today.
In yesterday's council meeting, the PP said that it intends to have the property declassified so that it is no longer a protected building and therefore the council will be able to find some use for it, or even, in a worse case scenario, knock it down.
The council wants to examine a number of avenues in an attempt to decide what is best for the building but they are going to face a battle.
The Socialists and the Nationalist PSM-IV-ExM coalition strongly opposed the PP's motion yesterday.
Palma City Councillor for Development and Housing, Jesus Valls, made it clear that the PP does not like the idea of being unable to touch the building.
What is more, as a protected building, the council can not even carry out any necessary renovations or reforms to the property.
We want to breathe some life back into one of Palma's most emblematic buildings and find some profitable and positive use for it, Valls added.
Spokesperson for the PSM-IV-ExM coalition, Antoni Verger, accused the PP of simply wishing to destroy and dismantle all the policies introduced by the former administration such as the Avenidas cycle lane and allowing traffic back down calle Blanquerna.
And Verger fears that, the PP's idea of breathing new life into the building is demolishing it.
The former Socialist Mayor, Aina Calvo, defended the property being a protected building and warned that it should not be touched for judicial and institutional reasons.
Calvo also pointed out that the plan to catalogue the building received widespread public support.
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