Q COSTA RICA NEWS – Frequent visitors to downtown San Jose will notice something different, the Plaza de la Cultura got a facelift.
Street vendors and itinerant musicians will now have to compete with the new plaza for the attention of the thousands of pedestrians daily in the downtown core.
The retrofit that took eight months to complete. At a cost of ¢3.3 million colones, the work includes a water fountain that will be running from 10:00am every day. But the real show starts at sundown, at 6:00pm daily when the water will be synchronized to music and lights until 10:00pm.
The Banco Central, that undertook the project, calls it “A Living Plaza”.
In case your thoughts went to ‘waste of public resources’, the Banco Central explains that the work was a necessary one that included a structural reinforcement of the main slab and the waterproofing of the entire surface to protect the gold musuem located below the plaza.
Multiple layers of material were used to extend the life of the work to between 25 and 50 years.
As to costs to operate the fountain, the Banco Central says the 35 cubic meters of water will be continuously filtered and changed twice a year at a cost of ¢65,000 per year. The electricity to run the pump, lights and music is equivalent to the of 10 75 watt light bulbs per month.
