Famed as one of the most widespread bulos (fake news) in Spain, the 200-metre-high Benidorm landmark is to be finally finished this summer.
Some 15 years after being green-lighted, the Intempo skyscraper in Benidorm is getting close to its completion. This notorious project will be finally finished this summer, and, at 200 metres, it will be the highest building in the Comunidad Valenciana.
According to the promoters, Intempo is finally everything it was supposed to be – an oasis of pure luxury in one of the most popular – and definitely, the tallest – tourist town in Spain, Benidorm. When finished, it will house 256 apartments of one-, two-, three- and four-bedrooms, spread over 47 floors. The highest floors are reserved for a spa, massage rooms and gym, and the top floor – apart from the unbelievable view – will feature a solarium, jacuzzis and bar. There are two huge pools in the complex together with a restaurant that offers outdoor seating area of 1,200 sq m. The building will be served by six high-speed elevators, and a car park is planned for the basement.
It is an exclusive development that will be gated and available only to residents and their guests. Some of the services available are concierge, cleaning and maintenance, rental administration (when you are away), and even room service (when you are there). According to Intempo management, all these services come at a relatively low monthly cost of (€160-210 per month), which is an average service price point compared to many other, less prominent developments.
More than 40% of the apartments in Intempo Benidorm are already sold, The Valencian understands. Prices vary from €204,000 for the smallest apartment to #2,395m for a top floor penthouse.
When finished, Intempo will be the highest building in Comunidad Valenciana. It was facing tough competition, not from the city of Valencia, where the highest building stands at only 115 meters (Hilton Valencia), but from other Benidorm skyscrapers. By reaching 200 meters, it has surpassed Lugano Tower (158m ) as well as Gran Hotel Bali (186 m) both close by. But at 200 meters tall, it is only the fifth highest building in Spain. As the first four on this list are in Madrid, led by Crystal Tower at 249 meters, it is the highest building in the country, outside Madrid, a record probably very dear to a place like Benidorm.
Although not the highest in Spain, the Intempo Benidorm building is probably the one with the most interesting history of all of the country’s skyscrapers.
The project was designed by Alicante architecture studio Pérez-Guerras, and the first building plans were presented in 2006. The work began next year. It was planned that the project would be completed in mid-2010, but due to the Spanish property bubble bursting, it was continuously postponed.
The original developer Olga Urbana went bankrupt in 2014 and the majority creditor became the notorious “bad assets” bank, Sareb, created to absorb all the worthless property assets in Spain. Sareb inherited the mortgage granted by the now-defunct Caixa Galicia savings bank and tried to recover part of the loan through a full auction of the property, after unsuccessful attempts to reach agreements with foreign investors. In April 2018, SVP Global fund officially obtained the ownership paying approximately 60 million euros. The developer began work in autumn 2019 and this summer, when the building will be finished, this saga will finally come to the end.
Apart from this unbelievable timeframe, the Intempo Benidorm will be remembered as the subject of one of the most famous bulos ever to hit Spain. In August 2013 the US edition of the Gizmodo blog published the hoax that the building’s architects had not taken into account the elevator shaft, and that a building where you would have to climb 50 floors on foot would be quite useless.
The news was subsequently published in numerous media, both national and international. This misunderstanding originated from an article published by the Spanish newspaper El País on July 20, 2013, that indicated problems of a different kind, but wrongly phrased, it triggered the whole feeding frenzy.
The first one to question the veracity of the news was the Microsiervos technology blog, providing, among other evidence, links to the building plans that clearly showed the gap between the two elevators and the forklift for each tower, or even the photos of the huge elevator button found on the blog of a journalist who went to the top of the building. The rumour was quickly denied by those responsible for the project, via Twitter and local radio and even Sareb made the official announcement.
By summer, the developer hopes, the Intempo Benidorm will be attracting far more positive headlines.
© Intempo Benidorm, The Highest Building In The Comunidad, On Point Of Completion – TheValencian
