Santo Domingo has lived with its back to the sea. This is true for the National District and its famous seawall as well as for the municipality of Santo Domingo East, the fastest growing and most populated in the country. The neighbors, ahead of their authorities, began a few years ago to regularly frequent the wonderful natural space that allows them to integrate the Caribbean Sea into their daily lives.
President Luis Abinader received from the members of Ceiztur, the Monumental Heritage of the Integral Program of Tourist and Urban Development of the Colonial City and the Minister of Tourism, David Collado, the explanations of this work that has already begun and will be delivered in 2023. The project is ambitious: an investment of 600 million pesos for the development of five kilometers.
Shaney Peña, who heads Mitur’s Directorate of Planning and Tourism Projects, was in charge of leading the president through plans designed to make the most of the land. The width, she explains, “allows for much better work than on the boardwalk in other municipalities. The sidewalk will be widened, a bicycle path will be included and the existing parking lots will be improved”.
These are seven points that from the new design will have regulated commercial facilities and with a design and services appropriate to the place and function. A future plan is to organize a board of trustees made up of Santo Domingo East municipalities to oversee the maintenance of facilities and infrastructure.
Creating value
For the president, this is not simply a work: “These interventions have an impact on the rescue of green and natural areas, but they also have an effect on the revitalization of economic activity and employment”. The president is thinking of the case of the town of Pedernales (not the Cabo Rojo project), of the works in Samaná, San Pedro or Nagua, of which he emphasizes “the project will be used to build a dike to protect the city from flooding”.
In fact, the development of the Malecon in Santo Domingo, said Sheney Peña, “led to the activation of at least two residential projects”. Likewise, in Santo Domingo East, housing developments have already been approved on land in front of the Malecon.
This is not an isolated project. It responds to the vision of recovering and cleaning up beaches throughout the country. Being the country’s leader in tourism, Collado points out, “beaches are a priority for the government of President Abinader. It is not possible to aspire to reach the goal of ten million tourists seeking sun and beach and not have them in good condition”. Parking, sanitary facilities, wifi… are part of the improvements already underway, for example, in Las Galeras.
Skate
There is more. Amín Abel Santos, general coordinator of the Integral Program for Tourism and Urban Development of the Colonial City, explains that the SDE boardwalk will have a skateboard track of the highest level, with Olympic competition requirements.
One last vision, says Collado: “This intervention extends the project of the Malecon of the District, passing by the Montesino Monument and the Colonial City”. A beautiful route so as not to continue with your back to the sea.
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Learn more: Ministry of Tourism of Dominican Republic
