EUSEBIO LEAL CONFIRMS IT: THE PAYRET WILL BE A GAESA HOTEL, BUT WITH CINEMA
HAVANA, Jan. 15th (DDC) The historian of Havana, Eusebio Leal, confirmed that the theater Payret theater will be converted into a hotel, but said that the time itself “will remain a cinema for Cubans.”
In an interview with the publication of the Ministry of Culture La Jiribilla, Leal criticized the abundant comments on social networks and various publications about Cuba that provoked the news that El Payret, an emblematic installation of the Cuban capital, was to be transformed into a new hotel of the GAESA business conglomerate.
“With Payret,” said Leal, “these days there has been an act of continued bad faith that ignores, in the first place, the attention received by that coliseum throughout the revolutionary period, a time when two restorations have been undertaken. very expensive, one in 1969 and the other in 1981. ”
Announcement of the future work. (14YMEDIO)
Leal acknowledged that there exists between the Office of the Historian who directs, the Ministry of Tourism and GAESA, a “joint work” from which “several of the works that now prestigious our Historic Center are born.”
This refers to the conversion of the old Manzana de Gómez into the luxury hotel Kempinski Manzana, among other businesses for tourism that are currently being exploited in Old Havana.
About the Payret hotel, he declared that “it will actually be built in that block,” but warned that “this will not affect the integrity of the theater-theater at all, rather it will contribute to its restoration and reopening as it has always been, an institution of public service.”
“El Payret will continue to be a cinema for Cubans and its maximum prices will not exceed the value that is paid today for accessing similar facilities such as the Martí and Nacional de Cuba theaters,” concluded Leal.
While Leal did not offer details about how GAESA intends to design a hotel that includes a cinema, the interview does not specify what kind of cinema would be the new Payret costing what is “paid today” for attending a theatrical performance, musical or dancer in the Martí or National theaters.
These facilities charge a fee of 20 Cuban pesos or more for a standard function. So the new Payret could offer shows for a sum that exceeds the price of theaters in Havana, which still charge two pesos for a film show.
According to the text, the Payret currently remains closed due to functional deterioration and lack of constructive maintenance since 2008.
The Payret cinema-theater and the adjoining buildings (among them, the Kid Chocolate multipurpose room) will give their space to the construction of a five-star hotel of 300 rooms designed by the Ministry of Tourism of Cuba, which would occupy the entire block delimited by the streets San José, Lieutenant Rey, Zulueta and Paseo del Prado, in Old Havana.
The work would be inscribed in the investment plan designed to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the founding of Havana, to be held next November.
