Not since Sotogrande and Nueva Andalucia were started nearly 30 years ago has the Spanish Costa del Sol seen such a major new resort development as Alcaidesa, the 1,850-acre golf and residential estate now being built on the edge of a 4,900-acre nature reserve between Sotogrande and Gibraltar.
Alcaidesa is being developed by Costain Agroman, a 50/50 joint venture by two of Europe’s larger construction companies: the Costain Group in Britain (which was the original developer of Vale do Lobo in Portugal in the 1960s) and Agroman, the Spanish group which is also the main contractor for the development.
At a time when the Spanish property market is as dead as anyone can remember for 15 years or more, it might seem foolish to embark on such an ambitious scheme now, but projects of this scale are not started or stopped on a whim.
It was 1986 when Costain first bought an option on some 4,500 acres of land on either side of the CN340 coastal highway from Malaga to Cadiz. Gently rolling scrubland, covered in gorse and heather bushes and cork, pine and oak trees, runs from the foothills down to one of the wider sandy beaches to be found anywhere on the Costa del Sol.
When I first visited this area nearly 30 years ago, the only building here was an old farmhouse that was later converted by a young American couple into a restaurant, La Hacienda, whose grand entrance gates on the main road gave no hint of the 2km of tortuous unmade road that led down to the farmhouse restaurant on the beach.
Now proper roads have been built over the estate. Some £45m is said to have been invested already in land acquisition, road construction and services (including the first of four dams to ensure year-round irrigation). Hundreds of millions will have been spent before this massive project is completed in perhaps 20 years’ time.
Though one gets the impression that much new development in Spain has taken place without benefit of planning, the law is strictly enforced for major projects such as Alcaidesa, whose masterplan is said to have cost £1m.
The design was by the wonderfully named Wimberly Allison Tong & Goo, of Newport Beach, California (best known for having designed the Grand Floridian Beach Resort at Walt Disney World, Florida). Overall site planning was by Jose Maria Sarandeses of Madrid, and Helber Hastert & Kimura of Hawaii. A Californian firm of landscape architects, Peridian, was also involved in the masterplan.
Because the site is close to Gibraltar, it falls within the military zone where separate approval had to be obtained as well as planning approval for development. According to Courtney Hayden, a director of Alcaidesa Costain Agroman SA, this delayed the granting of planning consent by about 12 months — even though there are only two small forts on the estate, which the developer has agreed to relocate.
Costain Agroman bought the estate from the Spanish bank which had foreclosed on the group of businessmen who had pieced the estate together (and had been using part of it as a safari park). As part of their planning consent, they were then required to sell some 2,650 acres to the state to create the 4,900-acre nature reserve north of the coastal highway. Work began in March 1988 on the infrastructure of the 850 acres of Alcaidesa south of the coastal highway, and construction started last year on the first of the traffic-free Andalusian-style villages designed by Marbella architects Tavasa. Loma del Rey is a beachfront village of 118 houses — but because of the ley de costas (law of the coasts) no building is allowed within 100m of the sea.
Seeding of the first of three 18-hole golf courses is almost complete, and the first greens are sufficiently lush to allow publicity photographs to be taken (though not yet to play). Designed by Britain’s Peter Alliss and Clive Clark, the course is due to be opened next June, though its clubhouse will not be finished until 1993. However, a £1m beach club will open next summer, appropriately named the Hacienda, with two restaurants, bars and tennis courts.
The first two showhouses have already been completed, the next 30 houses will be ready by January, and the remaining 32 of the first phase shortly after. Villa plots are also available, starting at £60,000 for half an acre. House prices range from £120,000 for a two-bedroom town house up to £260,000 for a three-bedroom house with three bathrooms.
No ordinary Spanish holiday homes these, with central heating, air-conditioning, telephone, satellite TV and security alarms. Soon there will be shops, a five-star hotel, a school and a medical centre — but nothing more than three storeys high, we are promised — and the whole estate will have its own security patrol.
Costain is not the only British developer on the Costa del Sol, of course. Three years ago, Taylor Woodrow International embarked upon Los Castillos, an apartment development at Puerto de la Duquesa, the Swiss-owned development at Manilva, midway between Gibraltar and Marbella. Here, on a 3.5-acre site alongside the first fairway of the golf course designed by Robert Trent Jones and overlooking the 300-berth marina, Taylor Woodrow has completed 90 apartments in six low-rise blocks, but has sold only about half of them at prices from £97,000 for a two-bedroom unit to £227,000 for the largest three-bedroom apartments.
In an attempt to boost sales in a sluggish market, Taylor Woodrow put together a range of financial facilities that it claimed were the first of their kind for British buyers in Spain.
Arranged with Legal & General, Abbey National Gibraltar and National Westminster Bank, these enabled buyers to purchase a property for just 5% down and the legal costs. A further 45% was payable over the following 10 months, with the remaining 50% being provided through a range of repayment or endowment mortgages over five to 20 years.
Unusually for a residential development on the Costa, Los Castillos is designed for all-year living, with cavity walls, solid floors with sound insulation, fireplaces and a thermostatically controlled installation providing air-conditioning and heating.
There is basement parking, lockable storage space and 24-hour security, including an intercom link to the resident concierge. As part of their incentive marketing, Taylor Woodrow has offered three-day inspection visits with scheduled flights, luxury accommodation with full board, and free golf for £250 per person, fully refundable to subsequent purchasers.
Having sponsored a survey showing that few developers offer their buyers free membership of their local golf course, Taylor Woodrow offered its buyers a free share (worth £11,000) in the golf and country club at La Duquesa, plus free membership for the first year. Taylor Woodrow Homes (a separate division from Taylor Woodrow International) has four schemes in Spain: one on the mainland and three on Mallorca, the largest of the Balearic Islands, where the firm has been developing for 30 years.
The one on the mainland is Las Fuentes, where 53 apartments at prices from £100,000 for two bedrooms and two bathrooms are being built in another Swiss development, Solpark Village, at Moraira, between Valencia and Alicante on the Costa Blanca (north-east of the Costa del Sol).
The other three are on Mallorca: the first is Green Park Village on the Son Parc golf course in the North East, where purchasers of two- and three-bedroom apartments at prices from £83,000 are offered free membership for two years.
The second is Vistabella, 24 two-bedroom apartments at prices from £63,000 at Na Taconera, also in the North East. The third is Es Voltor, six apartments at prices from £104,400 built into the rock face overlooking the Bay of Canyamel.
Also in Mallorca, McCarthy & Stone recently launched their first timeshare development (though they call it holiday ownership) of 46 apartments known as Casa Vida at Santa Ponsa, where eight weeks a year in perpetuity in a one-bedroom apartment can be bought for £9,250.
Other timeshare schemes in Spain by British developers include three beachfront sites by Barratt International Resorts: Villacana (85 houses and apartments between Marbella and Estepona); Dona Lola (165 apartments close to Marbella); and Leila Playa (63 apartments between Marbella and Fuengirola).
Barratt is now offering the last few weeks at Leila Playa starting at £2,475 for a one-bedroom apartment in the low season up to £5,250 for a three-bedroom apartment in the high season. McInerney Properties has its Four Seasons Country Club in 130 acres of grounds at the five-star Don Carlos Hotel at Marbella del Este. A single payment starting at £7,800 allows a member to occupy a two-bedroom apartment for two weeks in the low season, and to use the club’s sports facilities all the year round.
Next to the Don Carlos Hotel, Lovell Espana is developing White Pearl Beach, an unusual scheme of 147 air-conditioned apartments clustered around central gardens and surrounded by an arched screen wall with electronic gates operated by cardkeys. Prices start at about £74,000 for a one-bedroom apartment, rising to more than £300,000 for a three-bedroom apartment. Lovell is also developing Pueblo Aida, a village of more than 200 homes, between the two golf courses at Mijas.
After Wimpey Homes completed El Vivero de Marbella, a development of 52 apartments, five years ago (with one-bedroom apartments starting at £36,000), they developed Balcon de Bena Vista, next to the Gary Player golf course at El Paraiso (whose 200-bedroom hotel is now owned by Stakis Hotels), near Estepona. Prices ranged from £96,000 for a two-bedroom apartment to £190,000 for a three-bedroom house.
Wimpey Leisure also offer timeshare (or, as the firm calls it, time ownership) at Club Bena Vista at prices starting at about £3,000 for a week in the low season in a one-bedroom apartment.
Bovis Abroad is developing La Manga Club in Murcia, and Pueblo Don Miguel, overlooking the sea at Mijas Costa on the Costa del Sol.
However, Brent Walker’s financial problems put a question mark over the completion of Puerto Sherry, near Jerez, on the Bay of Cadiz, where more than 1,000 houses and apartments are planned around a 1,000-berth marina whose Spanish name is El Puerto de Santa Maria.
