A bygone era: a piece of Cuernavacan culture risks losing the ground it stands on. (Spotlight).

As a teenager in the 1970s, Flora Guerrero remembers Cuernavaca's Casino de la Selva as a place that didn't make you show a room-key to let you go swimming, where her family spent weekend afternoons at a bungalow belonging to writer Carlos Monsivais.

"Although the Casino was privately owned, it felt like something that belonged to us," the Cuernavaca resident said in an interview.

The childhood memories, along with a host of quality-of-life concerns, are reasons why she and other activists are now protesting the proposed construction of a supermarket complex at the former hotel and resort, whose gardens frame the opening scene to Malcolm Lowry's novel "Under the Volcano."

U.S. retailer Costco and Mexico's Comercial Mexicana plan to lay the foundation soon for a roughly US$80 million commercial complex at the 24-acre site in northern-central Cuernavaca. Developers hope to have the project up and running by the start of the Christmas shopping season.

But the mega-retailers came under fire after historical murals at the site were damaged by construction workers last year, and the National Culture Commission (Conaculta) ordered that work be suspended in January 2002. Also pending is an archaeological survey by the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) that could slow construction if prehispanic vestiges are found.

Demonstrators are also hoping they can earn a court injunction against the mega-stores on environmental and zoning grounds. They also hope to generate a groundswell of opposition from local homeowners by arguing that the stores will lead to traffic headaches.

Ideally, activists want the government to expropriate the land and develop a cultural center and public park encompassing the property.

But the protesters haven't found many sympathetic ears among either local or federal officials, who overwhelmingly favor the new complex and have the final say on whether it will be built. The Finance Secretariat has already approved Costco's US$10 million purchase of the land. Authorities also might fear antagonizing U.S. companies given the investment-right clauses that form part of Nafta.

The moves by Conaculta and INAH, both federal entities, are seen as stopgap measures and not long-term solutions.

Besides, much of the damage to the Casino de la Selva legacy appears to be already done. Activists say some two-thirds--about 1,000 square meters -- of the former resort's murals were irreparably destroyed shortly after Costco purchased the land around spring 2001. Ruined also, is a dome designed by the Catalonian architect Felix Candela that covered a main building at the site, which is currently off-limits to the public, activists say.

"The murals can't be restored," said Rafael Laddaga, a local activist and art dealer.

To be sure, Costco has agreed to include a two-acre arts center on the property to house the remaining murals, as well as to plant a new tree for every one chopped down during construction in the heavily wooded area. But advocates question whether the painted walls can be transported safely and stand opposed to the tree idea, saying it's not a substitute for the area's lush and varied vegetation.

LIMITED BETS

Despite its name, the Casino de la Selva's gambling history began in 1928 and went on until former President Lazaro Cardenas outlawed gambling in the mid-1930s, said Laddaga, who reckoned an American was the original owner of the property.

At any rate, by the time Malcolm Lowry set his famous novel in Cuemavaca in 1936, Casino had quieted:

"Palatial, a certain air of desolate splendor pervades it. For it is no longer a casino. You may not even dice for drinks in the bar. The ghosts of ruined gamblers haunt it. No one ever seems to swim in the magnificent Olympic pool. The springboards stand empty and mournful. Its jai-alai courts are grass-grown and deserted. Two tennis courts only are kept up in the season."

Starting in the late-1930s and early 1940s, however, the property's succeeding owner, Manuel Suarez, a Spanish-born businessman, began overseeing the transformation of the Casino into a world-class hotel and resort preferred by the elite when they visited Mexico.

Suarez's restoration took place at a time when Cuernavaca was still a small town with only about 25,000 permanent residents, in an era symbolized by a left-wing vogue in politics and the arts, according to Laddaga. Besides outlawing gambling, Cardenas had kicked out foreign oil interests in 1938. Moreover, Mexico flaunted an open-door policy for leftists out of favor with the powers that were, as Leon Trotsky and legions of Spanish Civil War refugees took up residence here.

After initially redesigning the Casino in the architectural style popular during the turn-of-the-century Porfiriato, Suarez was pursuaded to take on the Catalonian architect Jesus Marti, who designed the property's principal structure in the Art Deco style. Candela was hired to design the copula atop the building, and Suarez became a patron to other mainly Spanish and Mexican artists. Among them was Valencia-native Jose Renau, who created one of the building's chief murals featuring Mexican themes of conquest and mestizaje, Laddaga said.

Mexican artists Jose Reyes Meza, Jorge Flores and Roberto Cueva del Rio, as well as the Italian Silvio Benedetto, also painted their interpretations of Mexican historical events on the walls outside and inside of the main building.

Laddaga fixed the total value of the Pre-Costco murals at US$40 million. Art authorities from the National High Arts Institute (INBA) never registered the paintings, preventing them from enjoying at least some legal protection from the wrecking ball, he said.

Following the initial restoration, works by better-known Mexican painters, Dr. Atl and famous muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros, and a mobile by U.S. artist Alexander Calder were added to the Casino de la Selva collection, Laddaga said.

The Casino had seen its heyday long before Suarez's death in 1992. In the 1980s, the hotel and resort was on its last legs, with its only major attraction being a nightclub and discotheque called Jano, and only a few rooms for rent.

Suarez's family ended up selling the property to the Mexican hotel-and-resort company Sidek-Situr for about US$33 million in 1994. Following the 1995 peso crisis, however, Sidek-Situr, whose debt was heavily denominated in dollars, was forced to sell assets, and the family-owned group put the Casino up for bids.

After no takers agreed to the US$53 million price demanded, Mexican tax authorities foreclosed on the property in lieu of back taxes. In early 2001, the government put the property on the auction block, and Costco was declared the winner that spring, with a $103 million-peso bid.

Activists have sought to impugn the final purchase agreement, saying the roughly US$10 million sale price was absurdly low considering the same property sold for US$33 million dollars in 1994.

CROSS TOWN TRAFFIC

But advocates have other concerns as well. They say the retail complex will exacerbate traffic congestion on already clogged surface streets that currently service a nearby bus terminal. Also, two other major shopping centers--a Sam's Club--Superama complex and the Sears-anchored Plaza Cuemavaca--are within walking distance of the new Costco. The influx of mega-stores could also siphon business away from the local Adolfo Lopez Mateos public market, a source of livelihood for 12,000 local families, according to Laddaga.

On the environmental end, activists say building on the Casino site will prevent rainwater absorption into a key underground reservoir, known as Los Ojos de Gualupita, which provides fresh water to Cuernavaca's southern Acapatzingo neighborhood. Paving over the area also will help heat up the reservoir, contributing to evaporation and a depletion of the water table, Guerrero said.

Still, the protests have come too little too late. Neither the government nor the company appears to be making plans to back off from the project. One compelling argument for the construction to go ahead is that Cuernavaca needs the jobs that the complex would represent.

In a broader sense, the Casino de la Selva controversy may be a sign of the times. Cuernavaca, sandwiched between Mexico City and the arid, poverty-stricken state of Guerrero, has become a convenient jumping-off point for wary would-be migrants to the Federal District. Not having been born in the state of Morelos, these people have shallow roots in Cuernavaca and may be more interested in employment and discount prices than in the Casino legacy.

Plus, growing numbers of capitalinos are choosing to live in Cuernavaca while commuting to their offices in the capital, viewing the City of Eternal Spring less as a weekend getaway and more as a suburb.

Robert Donnelly is a freelance writer and correspondent in Mexico of the online trade publication Chemical News & Intelligence.