One of the conditions that En Comú Podem imposed on Pere Aragonès (ERC) not to knock down the budgets of the Generalitat of Catalonia by 2024 was to prevent progress in the Hard Rock macro leisure complex. As this has continued, the budgets have not been approved, so the Catalan president has summoned early regional elections for May 12.
The executive has argued that it is not possible to brake the processing of the Urban Master Plan (PDU) that must regulate the land on which the private macro-complex would be installed, in addition to ensuring that no item was foreseen for the project in the accounts.
The Minister of Health of Catalonia, Manuel Balcells, although he has shown himself openly opposed to the realization of the project and has admitted that it does not fit into its economic model for the Autonomous Community, has recognized that much of parliament does He has expressed his intention to move forward with the plan on several occasions.
From In Comú Podem they have refused to approve the budgets because the Hard Rock construction plan was included in them, arguing that it could increase drought situation that they consider “unsustainable” in Catalonia.
Background and Chemical Risk
Although the approval of the PDU was one of the measures to the Aragonès got engaged to approve together with the PSC for the 2023 budgets, its authorization still paralyzed while waiting for a report from the Climate Action department.
Already in 2016the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) declared a PDU that had previously been approved for these lands void, mainly because there was a chemical risk area on which some of the free spaces and equipment were intended to be located.
Based on the TSJC guidelines, the PDU had to be reformulated, and this is the plan that is being attempted now. Authorization for the installation and operation of the Hard Rock group complex It was authorized by the Generalitat in 2018.
Sections and Budget
The company, as reported by EFE, communicated at the time its intention for the project to include Hotelsa casinoseveral spaces for entertainment and celebration of showsin addition to his own shopping avenue full of shops.
For this, the Hard Rock group intends to make a initial investment of between 700 and 2,000 million.
Future of the project
If the PDU finally continuesyou must proceed to the signing of a purchase and sale contract for an established minimum of 120 million euros of the land for the construction of the macrocomplex, which would be located very close to PortAventura.
The company BCN IR 3, whose legal representative is the businessman James F. Allen, would be in charge of making the purchase. Currently, the land belongs to Mediterranea Beach & Golf Community, a subsidiary of CriteriaCaixa, the investment arm of La Caixa. Although, formally, ownership of the land would be acquired through the Catalan Land Institute (Incasòl), which would carry out the purchase and sale in the same act.
Hard Rock and Eurovegas
In September 2012tycoon Sheldon Adelson rejected Catalonia in favor of Madrid as an area chosen to build Eurovegasa macro leisure complex. As opposedhe Catalan government wanted to announce another macrocomplex of leisure and tourism in its community that had six casinos and as many hotels, by the investor Veremonte, from Enrique Bañuelos.
To encourage construction and encourage people to come to the proposed complex, The Catalan Parliament reduced the tax burden on casinos to 10%mediating an agreement between the then president Artus Mas and the former leader of PSC Pere Navarro. The resort was planned for 2016, with the name “BCN World”.
The first complication came when, after the Intermunicipal Council of Villaseca and Salou (CRT) had been established, the two municipalities in which the construction was planned to be located, The investor Veremonte did not want to continue with the project.
Finally, the PDU was approved in 2016but with a usable land of three quarters than initially thought, and a reduction of up to seven times of the space intended for casinos.
In 2018the Generalitat of Catalonia granted the project to Hard Rock groupwho was interested in investing in the project.