In 1993 the center, and indeed all of Medellín, was facing a bloody and complicated period in the city’s history. The big companies, which before calmly inhabited buildings like the Coltejer, the Vicente Uribe Rendón or the Café, were submerged in fear and uncertainty that dominated the entire territory.
However, it was difficult to silence the voices of the Paisa merchants, characterized by their stubbornness and mettle. Constantly, leaders of this union went to the Mayor’s Office to ask for solutions to the chaos that was experienced in their workplaces.
From that need to unite voices and forces in favor of a buoyant territory that was declining, it emerged in April 1993. CORPOCENTRO, the Civic Corporation of the Center of Medellín, a non-profit entity created by the Chamber of Commerce, the City Hall and the United Nations Development Program. This is how Carlos Restrepo, one of the founders of the entity and current member of its board of directors, recalls it:
“After the different problems that the center of Medellín had with the mayors in the 80s and early 90s, a series of merchants who had their businesses at that time in the center, let’s remember that the largest stores used to be here. representatives of the city, we saw the need to found an institution that could make some force majeure before the different mayors who took command. Thus, with Luis Alfredo Ramos as mayor of Medellín, we held the first meeting. Initially we were about 10 people, and we had the advantage that all the companies in the city had their headquarters or their offices in the center”.
About the actions of Corpocentro
Thus, this non-profit entity came to represent an important group of private sector companies before public entities, control organizations and the community in general, for the management of civic programs, investigations, projects, citizen oversight and activities that benefit to the inhabitants, merchants and visitors of the center.
To achieve its mission, Corpocentro has five lines of action from which all its projects are thought and developed, these are:
representativeness: Acts before decision-making bodies, government entities, security organizations, unions and the media, to defend the interests of affiliates.
center promotion: Carry out communication and dissemination actions on the positive aspects of the city center, to create in the community a favorable attitude towards the sector and a greater commitment to its preservation and development.
Improvement and conservation of the center: Contributes to the recovery of the quality of public space in the central area, to generate a change in the behavior of citizens, which leads to better living conditions.
Participation and citizen training: Encourages civility and seeks to generate greater participation and commitment of citizens with the transformation of the center.
management and research: Carries out studies and projects aimed at the development of the center in search of more propitious conditions for citizen interaction.
“All the efforts we have made have been very important, everything has been achieved thanks to the good relationship that the Corporation has had with the different municipal administrations over the years,” says Jaime Arango, president of CORPOCENTRO.
The work to preserve a territory
CORPOCENTRO had a very fruitful and busy first decade under the direction of the architect Margarita María Mesa. During this stage, important projects were carried out on research topics, public space management, national and international academic events, in addition to countless publications that were delivered to the city on urban planning, security, and mobility, among others.
This is how Carlos Restrepo remembers that period: “In the beginning there was a very successful management with Margarita; back then we had different problems like misuse of different properties and spaces. On Oriental Beach, for example, there was an old house that had become like a Persian market and was the ugliest thing in the world. Thanks to Margarita, we managed to get that to be bought by the municipality and now the space is managed by Comfenalco, where the Children’s Reading House provides services”.
After Margarita Mesa, in 1997 César Valencia Jaramillo assumed the direction of the Corporation. During this time, CORPOCENTRO was in charge of strengthening its ties with the administration and merchants of the territory, and began to contribute to the sector from culture.
The affiliates were happy to see how the entity was reaching important achievements, it had promoted the permanence of the Museum of Antioquia in the center of the city, also the recovery of the Barrientos House where today the Children’s Reading House operates and, even, had left reflected in a document the need to create a public park for all citizens that would connect the eastern and western borders of the Medellín River, something that Aníbal Gaviria later called Parques del Río.
In 2013, social communicator Jorge Mario Puerta Soto, who was part of the Corporation’s Board of Directors, became Executive Director.
With Puerta, the management changed course a bit and CORPOCENTRO began to speak out more frequently in public about the problems that affected merchants, inhabitants and visitors to the sector.
In this third stage, the accelerated deterioration suffered by the center becomes evident, so, to defend the actors in the territory, the Corporation begins to develop projects and proposals in search of its improvement, among them “The imagined center”, which It was looking for alternatives for economic, social and cultural innovation in six neighborhoods of Comuna 10.
This is also a stage in which CORPOCENTRO becomes a promoter of the positive aspects of the area, since it has not only carried out research and projects that tend to improve it; such as the “Socioeconomic Characterization of the 17 neighborhoods in the center of Medellín”, but also multiple actions to disseminate the territory.
“In these last 10 years we have worked on important projects such as the Mapaguías of the center in its three versions: tourist, gastronomic and educational. The management we do through the Centrópolis Newspaper has been very important to tell not only about the good things that are happening in the territory, but also to denounce the events that affect it. Likewise, the Directory of Commerce and Services of the Center of Medellín, available at www.centrodemedellin.com, and the guided tours of the center in a program that we call “Center Experiences of Medellín”, exposes Jorge Mario Puerta.
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Entities such as CORPOCENTRO are important in areas with as many problems as commune 10, since they interact permanently with all public entities, as well as with security and control agencies, so that the conditions of the territory can be better. Without an entity like this, especially in a sector as convulsed as the center of Medellín, commerce and the inhabitants would be left without authorized spokespersons or knowledgeable about the context that can judiciously present to the administration and the public the different problems that are going through.
SOME MILESTONES
– In its publication “An approach to the structuring system of the central public space”, Corpocentro proposed the creation of the Medellín River Linear Park, which was later executed by Mayor Aníbal Gaviria under the name of Parques del Río.
– Corpocentro was a promoter of the permanence of the Museum of Antioquia in the center of the city when at the end of the 90s it was thought of moving it to the south of the city since the center was not a decent territory for such an important entity.
– The Corporation promoted the recovery of the Barrientos House, where today the Children’s Reading House operates (2001).
– Supported the efforts to convert the Lido Theater into a city heritage site (1997).
– He gave impetus and financial support for the recovery of the work “Wall Opening” (2001).
– He carried out 10 editions of the Days of the Center.
