A BOARDWALK OF AMPLE ACHIEVEMENTS

Since 2001, the local government has designated US$30 million a year to the public work projects that have earned international praise

When Pedro Gómez-Centurión R. first arrived in Guayaquil, he did so during the nation’s worst financial crisis in 1981. Not a particularly auspicious time perhaps, but this Argentinean economist and financier who came as a representative of European banks, took the city to heart and has been resident here for more than 20 years.

This commitment to the city, and his relationships with the former and current mayors, culminated in 1997 when the Fundación Malecón 2000 was established, after a study by Oxford University to redevelop the riverbank was donated to the city. Mr. Gómez-Centurión was offered a consultancy, and then the position of general manager, and rose to the challenge from the beginning: “I had fallen in love with the project,” he says simply.

The Malecón, or boardwalk, was envisaged as a means for Guayaquil, which had turned its back on its river, to undergo a transformation, and the success of the project could not be more obvious. The two-kilometer seafront, featuring Latin America’s first IMAX cinema which opened in October 2003, shops and leisure facilities, attractive parks and fountains, and of course the view across the Guayas river, which gives the city its name, has attracted close to 60 million visitors in the first three years since it opened.

Fundación Malecón 2000 is a private foundation presided by the Mayor of Guayaquil. It was originally set up with backing from private banks, after which, under Law 26, its Malecón 2000 project was subject to receive 25% of the tax paid by both individuals and corporations who choose to donate. Close to 50,000 private donors contributed to the financing of the Malecón. In light of the praise the project has garnered worldwide, the foundation has become involved with other initiatives in Guayaquil, from the rehabilitation of the Eiffel-designed Mercado del Sur to the Estero Salado boardwalk on the salt-water estuary. In addition, requests to consult on urban renewal in other cities across Latin American continue to arrive to the foundation’s offices.