Baraka to Invest Nearly €20 Million to Acquire and Convert the Cinema Ideal into a 4-Star Hotel

8 November 2019 – Baraka is planning to convert the former Cinema Ideal in Alicante into a four-star hotel in a total investment of nearly twenty million euros. The firm is negotiating to buy the property from its current owners for approximately €6 million and to invest another 13 million euros in the renovation.

The firm is looking to convert the asset into a 60-room hotel, including a restaurant, gym and lounge bar. Baraka hopes to inaugurate the hotel in 2022. NH has agreed to operate the unit under its NH Collection brand during a 20-year lease.

Original Story: Alicante Plaza – Raúl Navarro

Adaptation/Translation: Richard D. K. Turner

Four Seasons to Invest €600M in a New Resort in Marbella

27 September 2018 – Diario Sur

The Four Seasons hotel chain, one of the world’s leading luxury tourism companies, is preparing to make its debut on the Costa del Sol with a resort in which it plans to invest €600 million. Although this will be the brand’s second project in Spain, given that it has been working on the construction of a 22-room hotel in Madrid since last year, this latest initiative is much more ambitious, both in terms of volume and location.

The resort is going to be built on a plot measuring around 400,000 m2 on the beach front and which occupies land on both sides of the A-7 motorway. It is the last plot of its kind that has not been built on yet in one of the most sought-after parts of Marbella, in the Los Monteros area.

The plot is owned by Villa Padierna, which is, in turn, owned by the Málagan businessman Ricardo Arranz, who has teamed up with the US firm Fort Partners for this development and the Brussels-based real estate firm Inmobel. Four Seasons will participate not only in the management of the hotel, it will also lend its name to the whole development, which will include private residences and villas in addition to a 200-room hotel. The complex will also include restaurants operated by international brands, which will make their debuts in Spain with this project.

It is expected that the urban developments will occupy approximately one quarter of the 400,000 m2 land. The project will be developed by the architect Richard Meier and construction work will begin as soon as the execution has been completed of a partial plan that has already been approved, according to explanations from Arranz.

One of the most notable features being planned is a tunnel underneath the road, which will allow the hotel and the homes that are going to be built to the north of the motorway to have sea views. The corresponding permits for that piece of work have already started to be processed.

Arranz highlighted the transcendence that the arrival of a leading brand such as Four Seasons has for Marbella and the Costa del Sol as a whole. It will be the first firm of its standing to operate in Andalucía and it will play an important role in the battle against seasonality given the large portfolio of clients that it enjoys (…).

Original story: Diario Sur (by Héctor Barbotta)

Translation: Carmel Drake