(QCOSTARICA) For the past two years, a small, really small, show store (zapateria in Spanish) stood among the debris of torn down buildings. For two years, Carlos Aguilera Jimenez, stood his ground. Literally.
Since December 2014, this small, again, really small, shoe store owner fought a legal battle with the owner of the land, file injections, avoiding eviction.
The zinc metal structure came down on Tuesday morning on the order of a judge of the Juzgado Primero Civil de Menor Cuantía de San José. The rest of the lot, less Aguilera’s shoe store, was cleared by bulldozers last December (2015).
It appears that poor health may have led to losing the battle, according to relatives and friends telling Ameliarueda.com (the online blog following up on their report last January of Aguilera’s battle) when they tried to contact Aguilera. Even Aguilera’s lawyer did not return calls.
A call to the owner of the land, a 1,000 square meter lot, did not result in not being able to talk to Claudia Carro, legal representative of Carro S.A. The AR caller was told Doña Claudia is out of the country. Period.
Today, all that is left amid the rubble of the Zapateria Panama are the memories and the human struggle of a small businessman against a land owner.
The land is located one block north of Paseo Colon, across from the Scotiabank building, known as the Torres Mercedes, an area that is undergoing urban renewal.
The lot and former Zapateria is shadowed by the country’s tallest buildings, the recently built “Torres Paseo Colon” only less than a block awat, and only a half block from the planned to be tallest building in Costa Rica, “Torre 40”, a 40 storey building that will soon rise next to the Torres Mercedes, on the old Grupo Q lot.
