The Valencia Arena is on track to meet its deadline: the second phase of construction was approved this week, and the sporting complex should be ready in 2023, as planned.
Lucia Beamud, Councilor for Activity Licenses, has announced approval for the second phase of work on the Valencia Arena complex. This is the second of three phases, and it corresponds to the aerial structure, roof, and thermal and acoustic envelope permits, covered installations, and provisional slab for firefighters’ passage from the parking annex to the basement.
Councilor Lucia Beamud emphasised the efforts of municipal technicians who, in the face of such a large and complex project, are responding in record time and issuing required permits. The licensing service holds weekly meetings with the Valencia Arena’s technical managers and teams up with them to guide and facilitate the task, “allowing the project to move quickly following the deadlines.”
“The local government is very serious about promoting and facilitating the development of important projects for our city.” “We are accommodating investments that will benefit València while also sending a positive message,” said Lucia Beamud. According to her, “the Valencia Arena will provide Valencia with a multipurpose venue that will position the city as a world benchmark for hosting top-tier sports, cultural, and entertainment events at the national and international level.”
It is a one-of-a-kind project because it is entirely funded by Juan Roig, a 72-year-old Valencian businessman, Mercadona director, and the richest man in the Valencian Community. Juan Roig, the son of a butcher from Pobla de Farnals, wished to repay his beloved Valencia for the opportunity to live and do business here, and the Valencia Arena is his vision of how to do so.
It is a vision of monumental proportions for an individual. The total investment is expected to be around €220 million, with the new Valencia Basketball Club headquarters becoming the country’s third largest indoor venue (after Palau Sant Jordi in Barcelona, and Palacio de Deportes in Madrid). It will also be the most modern court in the country, with twice the size of the current Valencia court.
The Valencia Arena will be built on a 21,500 square metre plot and will have a capacity of 15,600 spectators for sporting events and 18,600 for future concerts. The complex will include an underground parking garage with approximately 1300 spaces, restaurants, a new Valencia Basketball Club headquarters, numerous multipurpose rooms, outside seating areas, and much more. And, as expected, the facility will be outfitted with cutting-edge technology and equipment for broadcasting and monitoring a variety of shows.
Unlike many other projects of this type, the Valencia Arena was planned and decided on in record time. Only three years ago, Valencia Basketball Club approached the City Council for the first time, requesting a concession on a plot between Angel Villena, Bomber Ramon Duart, and Antonio Ferrandis streets.
That space was previously designated for a failed project called the Music Tower, that would have housed the Valencia branch of the Berklee College of Music, which instead chose the City of Sciences. The negotiations took some time because the Ayuntamiento was not in favour of monumental projects that could also fail colossally (there are quite a few of them in the City already), but an agreement was reached in the end because there was no cost to the city, and, after all, behind this project was one of Valencia’s most successful businessmen, Juan Roig.
Because it was estimated that the project would require at least 50 years to become economically viable, the concession was granted for that time period, after which the Valencia Arena will become the City’s property. Over the next 50 years, the City Council will receive around €10 million in concession fees.
What’s even more intriguing is that this project is entirely funded by one man – Juan Roig. His fortune is estimated to be worth more than €4 billion, so maybe €200 million isn’t much for someone like this. But he isn’t the only billionaire in the world, and projects like this don’t come along very often, if at all.
© The Valencia Arena Complex Enters The Second Phase – valencian.es
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