Next Monday, the plenary Urban Planning Commission of the Malaga City Council has on the agenda the approval of the detailed study of the large office building planned by Merlin Properties, in alliance with the Nieto family - owner of the land - at number 26 from Antonio Machado promenade, in front of the Port of Malaga. Once this procedure has been achieved, the promoters will only need the building permit - which they have already requested - to start building. The action has an estimated investment of 20 million euros and represents the first foray of Merlin Properties, the largest listed real estate company in Spain, outside of Madrid, Barcelona and Lisbon.
It is a high-end office complex located in front of the San Andrés Pier, with 9,800 square meters and capacity for about 800 jobs. It is designed by the Madrid architecture firm Ortiz.Leon, which has designed a building that is completely open to the Bay of Malaga thanks to its completely transparent glass façade, the terraces spread over all its floors and the penthouse that provides 500 meters squares of outdoor space, designed for holding corporate events. The architects thus wanted to make the most of its privileged location, on the Antonio Machado promenade and in front of the future marina. The proximity to the sea is not the only reason why its location was chosen: the AVE, Cercanías, Metro and the Center are also a stone's throw away.
The promoters of this building have needed around a year of procedures to get the definitive green light. The project collected positive reports from the different state agencies that had to evaluate it. The qualification of the plot already allowed the construction of an office building, but it has been necessary to process an urban planning study to fit the parameters of what will be built in this enclave, with a ground floor height plus seven.
One of the most unique issues of the project's architecture is the movement generated by the design of its terraces, which intersect in the central area of the façade. In March, the Municipal Urban Planning Management approved a clarification regarding the interpretation of the regulations of the General Urban Planning Plan that facilitates this design in this and any other project. In this way, the promoters of this building have been able to maintain its initial architectural configuration, although it was necessary to open a new period of public exhibition of the project during this month.
The action has the approval of the General Directorate of Civil Aviation, the Demarcation of State Highways, and the Demarcation of Coasts, which has left the evaluation of whether the project produces an architectural screen effect to the discretion of the City Council, a question which the Consistory has resolved indicating that "it does not impair the protection of the area of influence" of the coast, since it is on a front with many other similar constructions.
Of course, Costas has requested that the sand that can be extracted in the construction of the four basements for parking on which the building will be built be given to him for the regeneration of the nearby beaches. The project has been adjusted so that these four underground floors can accommodate a total of 185 parking spaces.
The future construction, which will have a rear façade facing López Pinto Street, will have capacity for about 800 jobs spread over floors of about a thousand square meters that will be modular, so they can be divided among up to four tenants. This means that the minimum space that can be rented will be about 250 square meters. Likewise, it will have a penthouse with 500 square meters of outdoor space, designed for holding corporate events.
The promoters of this office project are confident that their works can start in the second half of 2024, with an execution period of almost two years. In this way, they will be added to other similar actions for offices that are already under construction in the capital, as is the case of the projects that the Sevillian group Insur is carrying out together with Tabacalera and on the site located just north of the two Martiricos towers. . Likewise, an office building promoted by AGP Málaga Socimi between the María Zambrano train station and Poeta Muñoz Rojas street is also under construction.