Work to redevelop the Pneus Mabor eyesore overlooking Portimão’s river Arade has been given the green light.
The ‘Mabor Building’ stands on the waterfront in Portimão on Rua Serpa Pinto opposite the Visconde Bivar gardens and for decades has been a landmark for all the wrong reasons.
Agreement for the Mabor building’s rescue was signed this week as a plan for shops and apartments was approved by the council.
The €5 million private investment is being handled by the De Vlieger family using funding from the Jessica programme for urban regeneration administered by the Commission for Coordination and Regional Development – Algarve.
The Jessica fund was set up in 2010 and already has contributed to the rehabilitation and economic renaissance of the historic centre of Vila Real de Santo António and a rather less exciting car park in Albufeira.
The Mabor building is over 100 years old, was severely damaged in an earthquake in 1969 and was boarded up leaving the area as a haven for urban wildlife, vegetation and the transient homeless.
The funding contract is conditional on the building retaining its façade and keeping many of the architectural features intact.
The Jessica Fund was launched jointly by the European Commission, the European Investment Bank, and the Development Bank of the Council of Europe to support the urban regeneration in any part of Portugal and already has made grants of over €100 million in 19 municipalities, creating along the way an estimated 600+ direct jobs in tourism, real estate, trade and energy.
Portimão council has been attending to its saddening stock of derelict buildings by removing the homeless drug addicts and bricking up the entrances.
The police will continue to keep an eye on buildings in the city centre as work continues on identifying and blocking access to nearly 40 further abandoned properties.
It is not known how many of these buildings are privately owned but if Portimão follows Faro council's lead and makes it easier for owners to redevelop their properties, the Mabor building project may herald the start of a trend to reclaim and reuse many of the city's old buildings which currently give the urban area a sense of abandonment.
