Malaga drives project for ten-storey hotel on former Porcelanosa site

Urban planning

The urban planning department is processing an amendment that would allow buildings in the area to grow in height and accommodate more green spaces

Jesús Hinojosa

Malaga

Amid the ongoing debate about revising tourism regulations in Malaga, several four-star or higher category hotel projects are moving forward with the permitting process at the municipal planning department.

These projects would initially be exempt from the one-year moratorium the city council intends to approve to address the growing number of lower-category tourist flats.

One of the spared projects involves the construction of a hotel on the plot of land of the former Porcelanosa shop on Avenida de Velázquez.

The visual drafts architecture studio Domingo Corpas has prepared offer a glimpse of what the redevelopment of this area will look like. In order for it to move forward, the general urban development plan (PGOU) first needs to include a specific amendment that would allow buildings in the area to grow in height to accommodate more green spaces.

The plan is to develop a four-star hotel with over 200 rooms in a ten-storey building, the first sketch of which is already in the project file. The document does not explicitly mention the hotel use of the property and instead designates it for residential purposes.

However, it does indicate that it will be a "residential development or one with alternative uses". Unless modified, the PGOU considers hotel use as an alternative to residential use in Malaga, which explains the proliferation of hotel projects of various categories and tourist flat complexes.

This project, covering an area of 6,730 square metres, includes another building with a ground floor plus eight, which will house community facilities and a total of 16 social housing units.

The project initially included approximately 40 open-market flats, but then removed them as the building rights they represent are now included within the hotel zone.

An underground car park and green spaces that will connect the complex to Avenida de los Guindos are the final elements of this high-end project.

The proposal, which still requires a lengthy process including an environmental impact assessment by the regional government, addresses a circumstance that initially posed a challenge: the existence of a car park in a nearby residential building whose footprint encroaches on the Porcelanosa site. This solution allows the developers to avoid demolition that, as the proposal argues, "would lead to public outcry and render the project unfeasible".

"Thanks to this strategy, the built area represents only 32.95 per cent of the total area of the sector, with the remaining 67.05 per cent allocated to open spaces and green areas for the use and enjoyment of the public," the document says.