Orihuela Mayor Monica Lorente has announced that the city is taking the first steps to become a Unesco World Heritage Site. The exact details of the bid have not yet been finalised but the Mayor hinted that the city had major heritage value from its monuments to the Holy Sepulcher, Hernandiana Corner and the Church of Santo Domingo.
She said: "This will be an exciting project and Orihuela is going to strive to achieve this goal. This is a huge responsibility and undertaking as the conditions required by Unesco are strict and exact, but fortunately focus on heritage protection and restoration.”
To have Orihuela declared as a heritage site would be the best ‘quality seal’ the city could achieve, and would attract the best experts in cultural tourism and urban development. The mayor believes that the City has focused on its history and heritage and made an ‘impressive effort’ to maintain its monuments, architecture and medieval centre.
Restoration
In line with the announcement that Orihuela is striving to be recognised as a World Heritage Site, the mayor Monica Lorente, Bishop Rafael Palmero Ramos and Regional Minister of Infrastructures, Mario Flores, visited the third and final phase of the restoration of the Bishop's Palace, a National Monument since 1975, to be completed in nine months to open its doors as a Diocesan Museum of Sacred Art.
The project comes in six years late based on the initial commitments of the Government and the City in 2003 when this space housed one of the venues for the exhibition "Light Images". It has taken an investment of nearly eight million euros to transform the building from ruin. The renovation works, awarded to Doalco Orihuela, will see the halls of the palace adapted to house the new museum by equipping them with facilities that will maintain the temperature and humidity, with lighting suitable for the maintenance of the works of art currently stored on the premises of the Cathedral.

Also being restored is the Chapel of Holy Sepulcher at a cost of nearly 5 million euros. The work, due to be complete by June this year, includes the reparation of a shrine built around the mid-seventeenth century, under the Convent of Santa located nearby.
In 1976 the chapel was sold to the Masquere of the Knights of King Ferdinand, who established their headquarters in the Chapel. The building was abandoned for decades and was taken under the wing of the city in 2007.
This chapel epitomises the history and heritage Unesco is keen to see preserved; the architectural typology is unique in that it is an isolated building of a larger religious complex.
The building, located in the foothills of Mount Oriolet about 40m above sea level, is linked to the Observant Franciscans of Santa Ana, run by the Third Order of the convent. The current building has three distinct structures, the church and two terraced houses on both sides.