Urraca Park, one of Panama City’s oldest green spaces, is getting spruced up in a $2.1 million revitalization project. And if you live anywhere near Panama City’s center core, you probably can’t wait to see it.
The works include a new dog park, improvements to the kiddie playgrounds, the grass baseball field and basketball courts, parking spaces, and new benches and lighting. The emblematic statue of Urracá, Panama’s Ngäbe chieftain and leader of the resistance against the Spanish conquest, is also getting a facelift, fit for a real king.
Paid for by the Mayor’s Office and the corregimiento of Bella Vista, Consorcio Grupmas Infra won the bid to complete the project (within a 290 day timeframe), awarded after several rounds of citizen consultations.
And, the good news is that it’s all part of a bigger effort by Mayor Blandon to revitalize public spaces in the city’s urban core.
An even more serious spruce up is in the works down the road from Urracá Park: the Ministry of Public Works (MOP) just announced it’ll be opening the bidding process to revitalize 4.6 kilometers of the Cinta Costera.
Starting at the intersection of Balboa Avenue and Los Poetas, the section will run via the Marine Viaduct and end at the intersection of Los Mártires Avenue and the Bridge of the Americas in Barraza. The project will revitalize the elevated pedestrian pathways, bike paths, parks, sports fields and green spaces and parking lots along the Cinta Costera.
The works themselves will encompass pretty much anything and everything you can think of as long as it’s right along the Cinta (and bidders are welcome to add their own ideas beyond the TOR): from lawn maintenance to concrete slab repair, to painting benches, bike signs and access ramps for the disabled, scrubbing ditches, cleaning fountains and maintaining the drinking water distribution systems. And don’t forget maintenance for the viaducts and bridges. And more.
Technical and financial proposals are expected to come in in early July. Good luck to all of the bidders, we’re very excited to see how this project will breathe new life into this section of the Cinta!