Santa Margalida mayor, Joan Monjo, has made an assurance that the old people's residence in Can Picafort is not about to be turned into a hotel or any other type of tourist accommodation.
The mayor gave reasons for this. The concession for the use of the building is as a residence for old people. This concession still has twenty years to run. To convert it into a hotel would require an alteration of current municipal urban regulations, something that the town hall has no intention of doing.
The issue has arisen because at the most recent council meeting, the strategic plan for Can Picafort was approved. This approval followed one made by the governing board at the town hall in 2016. Under this plan Can Picafort is to be "repositioned", meaning that there will be a series of investments. The plan specifically referred to the old people's residence and to its conversion into "a centre of well-being" for tourism use. As far as the mayor is concerned, the content of the plan has not been amended. The idea for the conversion is still there, just that it won't be carried out. The Residencia, it might be noted, was originally built in the 1930s with the aim of being a hotel.
Another element of this plan is for the development of a site of 240,000 square metres by the one-time owner of Real Mallorca, Vicenç Grande. This is a project which has been spoken about in the past. It is one for a hotel with a velodrome as well as green areas, walkways and, as Monjo suggests, a "palacio de congresos", i.e. some form of conference centre.
In other respects, the town hall has already acted on the plan by having invested some four million euros in, for example, the remodelling of the Paseo Colón.