Hotel Partagás

[oliverdst]

To be build beside and inside the shop (not the whole building).

Work begins next July.

Source: Alex Avellar 

[Nino]

So there goes the project of turning Partagas into the cigar museum ....

Cuba - they already had the signs outside Partagas about the building becoming the cigar/tobacco museum ...

[oliverdst]

6 minutes ago, nino said:

So there goes the project of turning Partagas into the cigar museum ....

Cuba - they already had the signs outside Partagas about the building becoming the cigar/tobacco museum ...

Do you know what the Partagás building is for now?

I thought about the museum and I think if just part of the building will be a hotel maybe the other part will be the museum.

The shop will remain.

 

[Ryan]

Partagas is currently largely empty other than the shop and every now and then an art-exhibition or recital in the ground floor lobby.

I saw the article, it looks like the main part of the hotel will be on the empty lot beside the factory, where the old locomotives used to be.

"Some parts" of the hotel will be in the old factory building, whatever that means.

At least the building isn't being knocked (or the facade at least) and the shop will remain, it is one of the better ones.

The hotel will be good for the shop and they might even leave space for a tobacco museum too.

As it is, I would have thought the entire building would be much too big for the tobacco museum. 

It's a shame to see it closed as a factory but sometimes buildings get too old to be fit for purpose, especially when there has been hardly any investment in it in 60 years. Some of the paint on the walls is probably load-bearing by now!

The hotel chain will put money into it, more than the Cuban government would. Hopefully Eusebio Leal (city historian and well regarded) will have some say in it. It's hard to know what his status is these days.

A solid hotel with hopefully "Partagas" branding and some space for Cuba's cigar history, is better than a despalillo collapsing through a floor.

[Kitchen]

With Cuba being a salt water enviroment and the building be an old masonry structure, I have to wonder how stable it really is.  Plus the Cuban Government is not known for its building maintenance; just look at Central Havana.  

At this point, it may just be best to raise it and rebuild.  Perhaps save the front elevation, but even that may be difficult.  

Keep in mind many famous buildings we think are the originals are not.  Independence Hall has been rebuilt several times with nearly every part replaced.  The tower in St Mark's Square in Venice is not the original.  So rebuilding is not necessarily a bad thing; all things have a life span even buildings.