Most of the demolition work on the cinema building must be carried out manually in order to prevent damage to the adjacent buildings. In fact, much of the territory composing the Sagrada Familia district awaits significant changes. New residential complexes, commercial sites, and underground parking spaces are also in development and will emerge soon.
Initially, this development plan elicited severe protests among the local population. However, the majority of the district’s residents maintain that the area adjacent to Sagrada Familia substantially lacks some key infrastructure and at the same time has an obvious excess of shops. Eventually, the mayor’s office decided not to buy the old cinema, but to establish a college called Ateneo de la Sagrada Familia in the area adjacent to the former cinema as an alternative.
The famous cinema, Cine Niza, the façade of which was created in the neo-classical style, used to host 1300 spectators and was in operation between the years 1946 and 2005.