Puerto de La Mar Shopping Centre

A NEW OPPORTUNITY FOR SHOPPING CENTRES: A WATERFRONT TOURIST CITADEL AND CRUISE SHIP PORT OF CALL
A NEW CONCEPT FOR SHOPPING CENTRE 

This medium size SHOPPING CENTRE concept offer a new opportunity for municipalities, shopping centre industry and the community to take advantage of the synergy created by the draw and magnetism of the city Waterfront, the energy and revenues created by the massive income of cruise passengers to a Port of Call, and the proximity to a run down city core that requires of a new and bold strategy to revitalize its downtown. 

A NEW CONCEPT FOR CRUISE SHIP PORT OF CALL
Learning about Cruise ship Ports of Call we found out there was a missing opportunity for the Cruise Industry, the City, the Community and the Investors. New spectacular, "seven star cruise ships" were being built and ready to depart for new destinations all over the world, but the Ports were... not spectacular, not comfortable, not specialized for receiving and welcoming cruise ship passengers, they were mostly marginal, ugly, some time sharing cargo activities, and worse, separated from the City structure and community life. A new concept for cruise ship Ports of Call was needed.

THE SHOPPING CENTRE & THE PORT
In this case, the Shopping Centre becomes the fundamental component of the Cruise ship Port of Call. This is a new concept for Shopping Centre. It is specialized, more like a Market Place, ROUSE's Boston Quincy Market, in a different context and latitude and with an interesting innovation: it is a fundamental part of a Cruise Ship Port of Call, all contained in a Tourist and Cultural CITADEL, directly connected to the main pedestrian Boulevards of the city downtown. Here the SHOPPING CENTRE-PORT is the beginning of the destination 

A DESTINATION IN A DESTINATION
This SHOPPING CENTRE introduces a new concept for Cruise Ship Ports of Call. It is at the same time a Shopping Centre, a Port, a "Welcoming Stage" for cruise passengers, and a secure, comfortable and attractive "Meeting Place" of leisure, recreation, shopping and culture, for the international, national and local tourist. It is a Destination in a Destination. 

THE SHOPPING CENTRE AS A TOURIST CITADEL
The 15.000 m2 SHOPPING CENTRE includes in this first phase, a specialized Market Place, a Gastronomic Plaza, an Amphitheater and soon a Marina. This mix is designed to attract cruise passengers, international and national tourists as well as the local community. The first stage of the Market Place, designed mainly to attend the cruise market, includes 6.000 m2 for high category stores, jewelers, perfumes and fashion boutiques, as well a complete array of traditional push carts offering the most complete and selected pieces of traditional art and crafts. The Gastronomic Plaza offers 2.000 m2 of preferred space for a selection of Restaurants, Cafes and Bars located around the main ceremonial plaza and Amphitheater, The Plaza del Mar, where, traditional and modern dances, ballet, concerts, fashion shows are already being performed. The SHOPPING CENTRE-PORT is part of the City and directly connected to it. In this new Tourist Citadel, cruise passengers will arrive at the heart of the City and find a nice and convenient environment where to stroll, shop, enjoy traditional dances, or have a nice time in any of the cafes, restaurants and bars located around the main plaza and the waterfront. They will get the first impression and a feeling of the local culture, traditions and tastes. Locals will also enjoy the best brands of selected stores, the new urban waterfront experience, and the view of the spectacular cruise ships anchored one mile off the seafront.

URBANISM FOR VITALITY
The approach to what we like to call: URBANISM FOR VITALITY turns around the premise to stimulate the activities of the human being in society. The mix of uses, spaces and scales, has like the main protagonist "the life," and this is the one that determines the design and its construction and not the other way around. The main concern during the elaboration of the PLAN is to foresee and visualize the quality of the life of its future visitors and residents, while at the same time assuring a strategy economically attractive and sustainable for all, the investors, the city and the community. It is fundamental to define with certainty the urban morphology appropriate to constitute the physical settings for the rituals of the city recognizing in the past and in the present, which are the values of permanent character that all society sustains, which are recognized like significant to satisfy the present necessities

ARCHITECTURE: A CONTEXTUAL LANGUAGE
The Architecture of this Shopping and Tourist Citadel is exploring a new language that looks up to reinforce our Caribbean, African, Spaniard and European roots. To design lively sceneries for our present, day-by-day life, in an environment that articulates with our traditions, context and identity. The architecture of the Citadel is inspired in the traditional Spaniard waterfront Paseos, including the use the archetypical elements of the traditional architecture: corridors, patios, arcades, fountains, trellis, as well as images of defense and fort architecture, like stoned walls, stoned floorings, ramps, large parade and ceremonial plazas. At this latitude, Architecture and Landscaping becomes an indivisible matter, and a selected variety of Palm trees, Oleanders and Bougainvilleas create the joyful and tropical setting desired. In the same order of ideas, to reinforce the identity of the place and the new character of the Shopping Centre as a tourist destination, we have decided for the use of local and archetypal materials like stone of different sizes, forms, colors and textures, bricks, woods, sugarcane, tiled roofs, coral stone, fine plaster and stucco, all combined at very selected and specific moments, with sophisticated and high tech details and materials of today's construction industry. It is not a comic of traditional or colonial architecture but rather a reinterpretation to establish a synergy between Old and New and between Local and Global. This is Architecture to contain the rituals of life.

Photograph by: Omar CONTRERAS