(Reuters) – Spain’s north-eastern region of Catalonia is to announce a deal worth 6 billion euros ($7.58 billion) with partners, including Spanish bank La Caixa and real estate company Veremonte, to build a leisure complex, a source said on Friday.
The investment, near the theme park of Port Aventura in Tarragona, comes at a time when the country’s real estate market continues to slide after a property bubble burst in 2008.
No financing details were immediately available. The investment comes just a week after Catalonia’s regional government applied for just over 5 billion euros from a state credit line aimed at helping its liquidity position.
Catalonia is expected to fail in its bid to attract a separate planned gambling complex to be built by Las Vegas Sands .
Spain’s 17 autonomous regions remain firmly shut out of capital markets.
You would think that the Spanish government would slap some kind of blanket ban on the building of any new dwellings in the country. I know its a generalisation but sort out the current surplus before adding to it.
Beginning to look serious!
Report here (in Spanish) on the various elements of BCN World (no longer to be called Barcelona World as it will be located in Tarragona province). They state construction will start in September 2013. For something I thought was just a face-saving exercise, when EuroVegas announced it was going to Madrid, this looks vaguely legit – assuming of course they can get the financing!
Although I’m still not sure as to its viability, I can see why they think BCN world can attract numbers. Quite apart from the normal number of holidaymakers flying into Catalunya, it so happens that Tarragona has an AVE fast train station. From next year the fast train system is linked to that of France, so they may hope to receive French holidaymakers at BCN world.
I heard somewhere (maybe in this forum) that adventure parks are only made financially viable by getting people to spend several days there, in hotels, eating in various restaurants, raiding the mini-bars, etc. The actual parks themselves are a loss leader – a vehicle to attract customers so profits can be made elsewhere. Apparently that’s why Disneyworld works (people will go there for a week long holiday) and that’s the thinking behind Euro Vegas – the stakeholders in the park also have a stake in the other services. However I can’t see that being the case with theme parks built next to existing resorts, and other existing theme parks.
Where is the proposed AVE to Almeria? They were still tunneling when we were there…. I think it’s still an argument of who’s back gardens it goes through, ‘not mine, not mine either put it over there through theirs’…that type of thing 😉
Where is the proposed AVE to Almeria? They were still tunneling when we were there…. I think it’s still an argument of who’s back gardens it goes through, ‘not mine, not mine either put it over there through theirs’…that type of thing 😉
My experience of Spain is that they don’t have those kind of arguments – they just build the damn thing and if it goes through your garden then tough (unless you are in Valencia in which case the council might even charge you for the privilege 😯 ).
I look forward to the announcement of “Salou World” being built in Barcelona.
A bank with questionable assets, a developer with a dodgy past, the Catalan government trying to get one over on Madrid,
What could go wrong?
I’ve found Spanish people to be more optimistic than most other Europeans, sometimes taking it to ridiculous lengths.
Perhaps the ghost airport at Castellon is a good example of such misplaced optimism, but I see it on a daily basis. A Spanish neighbour has his house for sale at a ridiculous price, but he will never budge, no matter what.
Another owns a commercial unit, empty for many years because he wants rent that nobody in their right mind would pay. A Spanish restaurateur nearby charges 1.70 for a coffee, while his immediate neighbour charges 1.20, you can guess which one remains empty.
I’ve found Spanish people to be more optimistic than most other Europeans, sometimes taking it to ridiculous lengths.
Perhaps the ghost airport at Castellon is a good example of such misplaced optimism, but I see it on a daily basis. A Spanish neighbour has his house for sale at a ridiculous price, but he will never budge, no matter what.
Another owns a commercial unit, empty for many years because he wants rent that nobody in their right mind would pay. A Spanish restaurateur nearby charges 1.70 for a coffee, while his immediate neighbour charges 1.20, you can guess which one remains empty.
I could go on and on . . .
I see the same type of things everyday but I don’t call that optimism, I call it something else.
I prefer a bit of balance, it stops you from joining the moonies,
😆 yeah I guess we are all pessimists according to Rocker.
Its not optimism. It called ” Cabaceto” not sure if I have speLt it correctly. It basically mean stuborn or popularly means a Burro mentality.
Optimist see light & also a light at the end of the tunnel. The Spanish sees the light but do not see the exit from the tunnel. Hence the guy will not sell coffee for less than €1.70.
He will than have to close the Bar & claim that he did not have luck on his side or he/she is always unlucky.
I’ve found Spanish people to be more optimistic than most other Europeans, sometimes taking it to ridiculous lengths.
Perhaps the ghost airport at Castellon is a good example of such misplaced optimism, but I see it on a daily basis. A Spanish neighbour has his house for sale at a ridiculous price, but he will never budge, no matter what.
Another owns a commercial unit, empty for many years because he wants rent that nobody in their right mind would pay. A Spanish restaurateur nearby charges 1.70 for a coffee, while his immediate neighbour charges 1.20, you can guess which one remains empty.
I could go on and on . . .
I see the same type of things everyday but I don’t call that optimism, I call it something else.
I prefer a bit of balance, it stops you from joining the moonies,
😆 yeah I guess we are all pessimists according to Rocker.
Not you, not at all. Hardly anyone on this forum, to be honest.
But I admit I tend toward optimism, hopefully not the misplaced kind. I don’t know the reason why, not all of it, but I think I’m more optimistic in Spain than I was in the UK. More optimistic, perhaps marginally so, because I was perfectly happy during my years in the UK.
Without consulting Freud or Sartre, I’m going to stick with the sun for an explanation, and I realise I’m over simplifying by many miles. I find it hard to be pessimistic when the sun is shining, in fact I find it impossible.
I have many Scandinavian neighbours where I live, lovely people who either live here permanently, or come to Spain when their winters back home are too cold and depressing. Only a few doors away, my Swedish friends arrive around the first day of October every year and stay for the next eight months.
They get browner and happier and when they load their Volvo to go home, they know the sun is shining there too.
I don’t think you can ignore the importance of sunshine in life.
Rocker, I respect your view and your optimism so don’t get me wrong if I have a go at you. The forum needs the inputs of of as many people as possible to try and get some sort of balance. Personally my happiness is not affected by sunshine, never has been, my vitamin D3 levels must be sufficient not to fluctuate in whatever environment I’m in, maybe I’m lucky.
Now it’s time to go out and celebrate my birthday (the big 41) if I type anything at 3.00am please ignore it as I will probably be drunk.
Happy Birthday! Feliz Cumpleanos! Please get as pissed as you like and if you want to have a go at me, please feel free to do so.
When I was 41, I was living and working in London. It involved a one-and-half hour journey to work. Sometimes I arrived like a Zombie, barely able to function until I had several coffees. Lunchtime would often find me in a pub, drinking pints of lager to take the stress away.
It was hardly surprising when I found myself lying on a beach near Estepona, I’m going to speak with honesty, a nudist beach although I had my pants on and didn’t know it was a nudist beach, honest, and looked across at the Rif mountains, I fell in love, in love with a country called Spain.
To continue with honesty, the nudist beach had a bar where most of the people were sitting around in the buff. It was a lot better than drinking cold pints of lager in cold and wet London.
It’s the only time I ever went to a nudist beach, although there are several near to where I live in Spain. I’ve stopped drinking lager as well, but I’m partial to a single malt at weekends, several of them in good company.
mgspain. Happy birthday to you as the wish is out of the way. The old argument of glass half full or half empty.
The Spanish seems to think that the Barrell is full. This is when they are looking towards a mirage.
A friend Spanish friend of mine ex civil servent now wants to open a english school for children. ( optimism agree ) She is nearly 50, no one in her family has done business, she does not know how many children are there in her barrio, what is the average income of couples living in her bario, how much can she charge per child, what will be her teaching methods, will she have any endorsement from say Shakespeare, what will be the legal requirements in terms space per child, health & safety etc. In addition her English is non existent so this will incur the cost of emplying a teacher, what will be his/her rights, salary,social security, how many children she needs to breakeven and other cost which the Council will slap.
So is she being optimistic ?????
I had offered to make a business plan for her for free & asked her to provide me a lot of data for this. She has not come back to me. I do respect her wishes that she may not want to come back to me. I however know that this is definately not the case. She just is not capable to handle/focus or determined to collect all the data required for a meaningful business plan.
Shakeel – there are plenty of English academies springing up all over Madrid. Mainly academies specialising in young learners. I’ve assumed it’s a combination of the push for bilingual primary education and people desperate to find some kind of work.
I’m all for the ‘free market’ but the last thing that Spain needs is a new economic sector that has proven to be corrupt and corrupting in every location in the world it exists. Not to mention the human trafficking associated with casinos and gambling.
Latest news is that the Generalitat has imposed some restrictions on the project:
5 casinos, not 6
12,000 hotel rooms, not 20,000
600,000m2, not 1 million
New height limitations on buildings
Nevertheless, the first stone is still set to be laid this autumn.
Getting to be a pattern with these grandoise schemes. Paramount Murcia laid a foundation stone last year…now covered with weeds! They “allegedly” had planning difficulties too…as if 😆 😆
Enrique Bañuelos has revealed that his three investment partners in he first phase of Barcelona world will be the Chinese casino group Melco Crown, British firm Value Retail, and Spanish hotel chain Melià.
I’m still sceptical but it appears to be moving forward 😕
The draft master plan for BCN World is done and includes 2,500 residential properties, reports the Spanish press. This is something the Catalan Government denied would happen when it needed support of the Socialists party to approve reduced tax rates for the Casinos. Now the u-turn on housing as they no longer need the support of the Socialists.
The action group Aturem BCN World (Stop Barcelona World) has demanded that the new Government of Catalonia (Generalitat) pull the plug on this project:
The new President of the Generalitat, or regional Government of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, said yesterday that this project is “still alive.”
However, the agreement between his coalition group JxSí (an unnatural alliance created exclusively to pursue Catalan independence) and the loony-left CUP party his Government depends on assumes this project will be iced. So mixed messages as usual with this shower of a Government.
The Melco Group, one of the companies bidding to build a casino in the Barcelona World project, has announced that it is suspending the sale of share between MelcoLot and Melco International Development Ltd as a result of the ‘“political situation” in Catalonia, reports the daily paper La Vanguardia.
The transfer of shares between Melco Group companies was conditional on obtaining permission to go ahead with building the casino in Barcelona World. The political impasse in Catalonia, where a coalition Government lacks a stable majority, and where some parties are vehemently against the project, means planning permission for Barcelona World has been on hold for years with no end in sight.
Sources in the Generalitat (regional Government of Catalonia) told La Vanguardia that this decision is just a technical, internal matter for Melco Group, and that the Bcn World project will go ahead.
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