ARCHIVED - Paramount Park Murcia, plans presented.

Paramount Park and Lifestyle Center, Plan parcial amended.

ARCHIVED - Paramount Park Murcia, plans presented. The Mayor of Alhama de Murcia, Alfonso Fernando Cerón Morales, gave a press conference yesterday to discuss practicalities of the project to build the Paramount park and Lifestyle Center within the municipality.

Also at the press briefing were the Municipal head architect, who has the responsibility for preparing all the studies and plans which need to be taken into consideration, Domingo Montserrat, and the Technical Director and Lawyer for Premursa, Jaime López-Amor.

The Mayor of Alhama opened the briefing by saying that, "El Parque Paramount no tiene marcha atrás," there´s no going back for the Paramount Park, a message he reiterated throughout the session.

For Alhama de Murcia, this project is extremely important, guaranteeing work to the generation of young people growing up in the town, and the council were at pains to emphasise the scale of the work which has to be undertaken by the council and the infrastructural investment which it also has to make to bring the project to fruition.

The Mayor reiterated that whilst the Region of Murcia had been chosen as the location for the park due to it´s all year round good climate, new International Airport at Corvera, developing Cruise port at Cartagena, and it´s infrastructural links with Alicante and the coastal tourism trade, that Alhama specifically had been chosen because it was equidistant to the 3 main cities of the Region, Murcia , Cartagen a and Lorca, had perfect rail and road connections, was close to the airport, but also had perfect land plots available for the project.

ARCHIVED - Paramount Park Murcia, plans presented. One of the key decisions in selecting Alhama was the availability of the land plot, included within the Plan general, and the possibility to rapidly pass paperwork through the bureaucratic processes required to comply with the strict timescale requirements of the Paramount Licensing agreeement, due to the agreements already in place for residential development.

This week, several important steps have taken place, moving the Park forward in preparation for building to commence in the spring.

Plan especial and Plan parcial amendments approved, pending public display.

This week the Town Hall has approved the provisional Plan especial for the construction of the Paramount Park, and the modification of the Plan Parcial, in relation to the lands upon which the Park and Lifestyle Center will be built.

These 2 documents and the environmental impact study will now go on display to the public for a 2 month period, to enable residents of the area to enter any objections about the proposals.

ARCHIVED - Paramount Park Murcia, plans presented. The first document, relating to the Plan especial, lays out the distribution of the park and its relationship with the commercial and Lifestyle Center.

The second relates to the Plan Parcial for the Sierra de Alhama Golf Resort, the interesting point regarding this amendment being that this is now divided into three sections, two of which will remain in the possession of the existing owners, enabling residential tourism construction to take place as was previously intended, whilst the third part of the plot will host the Paramount park and car parking area.

The total investment for this element of the Park is 460 million euros, a sum for which financing is available, in agreement with a 40 month construction period, beginning in the spring of 2012 and planning for a 2015 spring opening.

Parking is being created for 30,000 visitors a day.

This section of the park includes provision for the anticipated 30,000 visitors a day who will visit the park once it is fully open, allocating 23 hectares for parking, and requiring the modification of additional road accesses.

The second area of the park is divided up into plots, each of which will host a specific activity, ie casino, hotels, leisure zones, auditorium, offices and business centre, and retail shops.

The whole site is surrounded by a cycle road and perimeter road for the use of ecological vehicles, and large areas have been allocated for parklands, giving the centre a low density impact and taking advantage of natural land features.

For the council, the planning includes provision for water supply, electric and sewerage, all of which had already been included in the provisional planning for the Alhama Golf Resort, taken account of in the Plan Parcial previously.

Planning is already underway for amendments to the road networks to handle the anticipated volumes of visitors, and the Mayor also said yesterday that the council are considering the possibility of building a tramlink from the railway station , via the industrial park into the Paramount complex. There will also be a cycle lane connecting the town itself and the park.

For Alhama, and the Region of Murcia, the construction is anticipated to give a much needed boost to the construction sector, " the works will begin in the spring and finalise in 2015, and , given the innovative character of the project it is very difficult to calculate how many jobs will be created in the construction phase, " said López-Amor, who also indicated that premursa intend to work with the same team used for the construction of the Nueva Condomina centre in Murcia, a project also developed by Jesús Samper.

Is there any financing for the Paramount Park Murcia project?

ARCHIVED - Paramount Park Murcia, plans presented. During the any other questions session, we asked the question our readers really want to know - are there any investors yet?

The total cost of the entire project is 1.1 billion euros, 460 million of which relates to the Paramount Park, parking and Sierra de Alhama Golf development, for which we were told , the financing is available.

In response to the question, the Mayor said that " the arrival of Paramount narks a before and an after for Alhama and for the region. There are investors. Operations are being closed, and details will be given once the escrituras are signed for the formal purchase of the land in February, " he said.

The reason details were not being made public was to avoid speculators.

There are now 2 months to wait for the public display of documentation to conclude, following which the council can definitively approve the amendments to the Plan parcial, the Plan especial and the environmental impact reports.