The Pestana Group has the go-ahead to start creation of a new Pousada in the historic centre of Vila Real de Santo António.
The hotel will be developed from four historical buildings that are owned by the Council and controlled by its municipal company, VRSA, Sociedad de Gestão Urbana, E.M., S.A. Vrsa, which manages all urban development operations in the historic centre.
The design of the 57-rooms hotel, located in the central Praça Marquês de Pombal, will attempt to emphasis the history of Vila Real de Santo António.
The construction and transformation work will take about a year to complete, will cost €3 million and is all part of the strategy of renovating the city centre’s historic buildings.
Conceição Cabrita, mayor of VRSA, said that the Council’s overall city centre strategy had encouraged Pestana to invest in the Pousada project.
In the Algarve, the Pestana Hotel Group runs three hotels under its ‘Pousadas de Portugal’ brand; the Palácio de Estoi, the Fortaleza de Sagres and the Convento de Tavira.
The Vila Real de Santo António hotel will be the fourth historic Pousada for the region and Pestana’s 17th hotel in the Algarve.
Vila Real de Santo António was founded after the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, and expanded from 1774 using the same architectural and construction techniques employed in the reconstruction of Lisbon after the disaster.
The city was erected in only two years and completed in 1776. Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, the 1st Marquis of Pombal, was responsible for the design of the town in a Pombaline orthogonal grid which he also used during the reconstruction of Lisbon.
In a pioneering technique, entire buildings were prefabricated in areas outside the town and transported to their final locations for assembly, permitting the fast and methodical construction of the city.
