The Emilio Álvarez Gallego Foundation, Cáritas, the Archbishopric of Valladolid and the City Hall of the capital participated this Wednesday in the laying of the first stone of the building which will house the special education school of the Obra Social del Santuarioin the so-called Cáritas land, where this entity will also rehabilitate an old building to establish its headquarters in the city.
The Secretary of the Foundation, Ciriaco Rodriguez; The Archbishop of Valladolid, Luis Argüello, and the mayor of the city, Jesús Julio Carnero, participated in the ceremony of laying the first stone of the works of the new center, started a month ago, and in which took part other representatives. municipal authorities, the Valladolid church, religious social organizations and the staff of the center itself, reports Ep.
The new educational center project is located on what is known as the Cáritas plot, between Simón Aranda and José María Lacort streets has a budget of 3.8 million euros plus VAT, which will be fully paid by the social entity and the execution time is ten months, with the intention of the Social Projects to start the 2025/2026 academic year in the new center. It will be configured on two floors, with a large patio, and will be intended for the second cycle levels of early childhood education, primary education and secondary education of the Obra Social Special School del Santuario, which are currently taught in a building. in the neighboring street of the Sanctuary.
As the city mayor pointed out, the project will improve “the urban structure of this area of Valladolid” and the “social structure” will be improved with a center that will provide its specialized education service “in better conditions”.
For his part, the Archbishop of Valladolid stressed that the action of the Obra Social del Santuario through this school fulfills a necessary function among students and their families who will be offered “better and greater services” and one might even think that the students “can grow,” although he acknowledged that working with 50 children “exhibiting these characteristics” requires “personalized and extraordinarily valuable dedication.”
The foundation, he added, has in its plans the renovation of the old building Caritas day center with entrance on José María Lacort street which will be the headquarters of the diocesan social entity in a project which will be presented soon.
In addition, the land reserves, since its regularization, part of the space for municipal grant land, for which Jesús Julio Carnero stressed that there are “different options” for this land and that the City Hall is “in phase of study”. “It should be remembered that the electoral program of the Popular Party provided for the construction of a multi-purpose civic center on this land, with a center for the elderly, a day center and a library, although recently the creation of a center of active living in the area art school on St. Leopoldo Cano.
As you explained the school director, Virginia Rodríguezthe new center will offer a “great opportunity” to provide more resources to staff and students, who are fundamentally children “with different abilities”, such as autism spectrum disorder, functional diversity or cerebral palsy. Some of them, the majority, are of the “preferential” type and there are also students in “mixed schooling”.
The center has a multidisciplinary team made up of ten teachers, as well as a guidance team made up of a psychologist and a social worker, physiotherapists and technical educational assistants. The educational offer includes six concerted classrooms, including one for the second cycle of early childhood education, four for compulsory basic education and one for the “transition to adult life”.
The “first stone”, as detailed Ciriaco Rodriguezconsisted of a methacrylate urn in which were two copies of the daily press for this Wednesday – a day chosen to be between the Feast of Christ the King and Feast of Blessed Bernardo de Hoyos-two publications of the Archbishop’s magazine, legal tender coins, gospels with the stamp of the aforementioned blessed, a model of the image of the Heart of Jesus from the tower of the Cathedral, a bracelet of the year jubilee ended a few months ago and drawings and work carried out by students of the school. All this was blessed by the Archbishop of Valladolid.
The project
As explained by the representative of G33, the architecture studio that carried out the project, the new center will have an area of approximately 1,700 square meters (m2) built, with a floor area of 700 m2, to house the six aforementioned classrooms and will also have a library, dining room, gym, gardening workshop, physiotherapy rooms, multi-sensory and multi-purpose rooms and a chapel.
The two-storey building – a children’s area on the ground floor, next to the dining room, gym and garden and on the first floor the classrooms for the elderly and the library – will be composed of a single volume with several entries. , interconnected by a central hall, with two L-shaped floors and, in turn, connected by two vertical communication cores.
There is the “substantial complexity”, as the architect pointed out, of the fact that the building will be located on four basement floors built a few years ago, which has “somewhat limited” the structure and internal distribution.
The center has four different playing fields, with a total area of 900 square meters (m2) and will have an area that can be covered by retractable fabric awnings, and an area for a garden.
This plot was one of those that suffered alterations during the manipulation of the 2003 General Urban Plan, which resulted in the conviction in 2019 of the former urban planner José Antonio García de Coca, who died last year, and by several accusations in said area that they served during the time of the popular former mayor, Francisco Javier León de la Riva.
The irregular amendment at the time involved changing a plan so that a parcel that was to appear as unconsolidated urban land was considered consolidated, which did not require owners to give up open space for public amenities.
Finally, with the revision of the PGOU 2020, approved during the mandate of Manuel Saravia (VTLP) as urban planning advisor, a new distribution of spaces was established in accordance with the Emilio Álvarez Gallego Foundation, which in 2023 transferred the land to its once again to Caritas. With the regularization, the Town Hall obtained part of the land which can be dedicated to a municipal grant.
