Pedro de Valdivia Movie Theater to become an apart-hotel

To see international photos, click here

SANTIAGO.- The days of matinees with vermouth on the corner of Pedro de Valdivia and Francisco Bilbao in Providencia are over. The Pedro de Valdivia cinema complex, one of the last traditional movie theaters left in Chile's capital city, has been auctioned off.

The final price of reached at the auction was $320 million pesos, $30 million more than the opening bid of $290 million pesos that had been offered by Chilean-Spanish business tycoon Francisco Torres, owner of the Principe de Asturias de Ramón Carnicer Hotel.

Torres himself opened the rapid bidding sequence with an offer of $310 million pesos, followed by someone else with $315 million, to which the hotel mogul responded by offering a final bid of $320 million.

Torres said that he plans to construct an apart-hotel on the corner of the theater's property. He did not clarify whether this means the cinema will be demolished or renovated. "We'll have to see what the construction guidelines dictate", he affirmed.

The mogul was clear however, in making it known that the establishment will no longer have any cultural function and that he plans to sell all of the furniture, which came included in the auction.