Casa Mediterráneo has its official headquarters in the old station of Benalúa in Alicante, an emblematic protected building inaugurated in 1887 as a railway station. It was the flagship of the Alicante-Murcia line given its proximity to the Port of Alicante, the Mediterranean busiest one in terms of commercial traffic at that time. Projected by the engineer M. Alessandri, over the years it has undergone few transformations on its facade, which has allowed it to remain practically the same until today. Included in the Municipal Protection Catalog, it was at the end of the sixties, with its closure as a passenger station, when it began its gradual abandonment, being unused for two decades. On July 14, 2009, the Administrator of Railway Infrastructures (ADIF) transferred the property to Casa Mediterráneo for its use, after its rehabilitation, as the headquarters of the public consortium. After three years of work, the Benalúa station has undergone a rehabilitation project of which three phases have been undertaken. The third has been replaced, partially and temporarily, by a project of temporary approval that has allowed to close it, safeguarding it from the inclemency of weather and vandalism, allowing its use for offices and spaces of multiple uses, and reducing the volume that needs air condition.
Eclectic cultural center: exhibitions, concerts, book presentations, movies, theater, music ... in short, a wide and varied cultural offer in the city of Alicante. The center promotes creative, cultural, artistic and leisure activities, with almost three thousand square meters, houses spaces equipped with the idea that young people can develop their hobbies with support of appropriate means. It has the first vertical garden of Alicante, with a height of 25 meters. The popular Tabacalera, created at the beginning of the 19th century, forms an outstanding architectural ensemble of urban heritage. Work center of thousands of workers for two centuries, the factory is part of the collective imagination of several generations of Alicante. With the transfer of the tobacco production to the outskirts, the old factory of the center was at the municipal disposal. The restoration campaign for three of the factory's warehouses, where the Las Cigarreras Cultural Center is currently housed, has turned them into a cultural platform of the first order in Spain. These spaces already function as a Contemporary Culture ship, where the Black Box is located, a multifunctional auditorium to host musical and theatrical performances, a Cultural Heritage building and a House of Music. To this we must add the Vertical Garden, made outdoors.
The "rambla de Méndez Núñez", also known as La Rambla, is a central avenue in the city of Alicante that separates the neighborhoods of the Center and the Old Town, it connects the avenue of Alfonso el Sabio with the Explanada de España and is located in the final channel of a watercourse (the ravine of Canicia), named after the nineteenth-century Spanish military Casto Méndez Núñez. Until well into the nineteenth century, when the walls of Alicante were demolished, one of the defensive walls that were built during the sixteenth century was covered by the current route of the street. The street that ran parallel to this wall inside the walled city was called Calle del Muro, while on the outside was the ravine of Canicia, which collected the waters of the watercourse receiving the name of Carrer del Vall. After the demolition of the walls, the street was built using the rubble to fill the ravine. Towards the first decade of the 20th century, the street had an elevated central promenade. In 1912, the market for traveling stalls was moved there, previously located in the market of the Explanada de España. When the Central Market opened, the elevated promenade was dismounted and a tree-lined avenue was left. In 1941, some buildings were demolished to extend the street to the Esplanade and in the following decade it was extended to the north, remaining in its current configuration. After the serious floods that Alicante suffered in 1997, a large underground rainwater collector was built on this avenue.
Plaza 25 de Mayo is also known as the Plaza de las Flores, its named to the memory of the victims of the Alicante Market bombing on May 25, 1938, during the Spanish Civil War. Previously it was called Plaza del Mercado due to the location of the market right behind the plaza, and before the construction of the Central Market, it was called Plaza de Balmes. It is a place with a lot of life, very crowded and worth visiting in a trip through the capital of Alicante.
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