Paramount Murcia, more mayors flock to the rollercoaster ride

Paramount theme park Murcia, Spain

2010-09-17

Well at this rate, it might be easier to just write a report about all the municipalities who have no interest in hosting the Paramount Theme Park, as the announcements keep coming in of yet more mayors who are keen to put themselves on the list.

Today Molina de Segura have announced their candidacy, which is actually a very practical option and one which could count as a serious contender.

All the indications are that one of the main criteria for this project is going to be accessability, and Molina de Segura is located in a very advantageous position, being close to Murcia, but not so close as to get caught up in the Murcia Ringroad traffic. Its been very interesting receiving your comments and feedback about all of this, a couple of people commenting that the murcian ringroad can be an unwelcome reminder of those long mornings spent yawning on the M25 at times, an interesting observation, given that this will be the main arterial route to bring visitors in from Alicante Province if the chosen location happens to be more central to the Region.

Molina de Segura has the second largest population concentration in the Region, with many residents commuting into Murcia to work via a fast connection into the Capital, the A30.
The municipality starts just to the north of the existing murcian commercial parks, the lands on offer being very close to the ringroad intersection, and the mayor, Eduardo Contreras says that he is sure Molina has what the investors need in an ideal location.
He could well be right, so dont discount this one.
Have a look at the map of Murcia and youll see its a very practical option.
 

One phrase which keeps coming up is the "Eje Cartagena-Murcia" which means the link between Cartagena and Murcia, the A30.
The difficulty in accurately assessing this as a candidate is that no indication has been given as to exactly where the proposed location is for the site. Its been mentioned in several quarters that this could be a very relevant candidate, but geographically would would appear to fall nearer to Cartagena than Murcia.

 Looking at the map, and having driven this road hundreds of times, the first section of this road as it climbs out of Murcia is up through the Sierra de Carrascoy, a wooded area of mountainous peaks and fir trees, much of which is protected parkland. It doesnt start to flatten out until junction 158, which ironically is the turn-off for the new Corvera International airport.

A site close to the airport was discounted yesterday due to the number of parcels involved in securing the plot, but there are certainly large areas of flatlands in this middle section which link across to Balsapintada and Fuente Alamo, and large areas of flat farmland along this stretch of the A-30.
The access from Alicante isnt as straightforward in this section as, say to Murcia, Molina de Segura and Alhama, but its not bad, and its direct from both San Javier and Corvera. The only thing missing here is the Rail-link, but the original plan was for the AVE to link through Corvera.

There isnt a natural workforce here and no natural infrastructure, which could make it more expensive for investors than a site such as Alhama which is ready to go, but its current anonymity could also be in its favour.
Have a look at the location of Corvera,

, and you can see the junction which were talking about, although, as mentioned above, no indication is being given at the moment for the site, so it could equally well be near to Cartagena. As we said before, this is one determined Mayor who is very well connected.
Its certainly surprising that Fuente Alamo havent declared, as they have several perfect stretches of land within their municipality which have the close access from the airport.

Alhama de Murcia is receiving a lot of support for its candidacy, with the  IRM Group (Inversiones Resort Mediterráneo) comprising Bancaja, Caja Mediterraneo, Banco de Valencia and Banco Popular, and Cajamurcia apparently extremely keen to see the site of Condado de Alhama 2 selected as the location of the park.
They were left with a vast area of land which was negotiated as part of the deal worked out earlier in the year when Polaris World was on the verge of insolvency. Forced to accept land and houses against debts, the banks are carrying heavily property weighted assets sheets at the moment, and in-line with many other banks, would be delighted to see a way in which they could lighten their load.

The fact that the land is already zoned for development and has infrastructure already existing, as well as fulfilling all the other criteria is pushing it firml;y to the front for many as a candidate, but as President Valcarcel said today, the government will have no part in making this decision, it will be up to the investors to decide the location of the park.

A little point to note here, is that when questioned by reporters, he said that within a month, to a month and a half we will know the location of the park, which is a longer timescale than that given by other people. He also spoke about the plot size as being 3 or 4 million square metres, not 6 million.

The IU ( extreme left) have today expressed their opinion that this whole Paramount Project is " just a montage, and has just been put together by the PP for the election campaign."

José Antonio Pujante, the IU regional co-ordinator, said that he would be requesting that the Minister for Culture, Pedro Alberto Cruz, make a statement to the Regional Assembly about the Project.
He says that, " the project runs a very high risk of becoming a fiasco and not fulfilling its initial expectations as occurred with Terra Mitica in Benidorm, which was also backed by Paramount."
To be fair, that was a completely different ballgame, as well report in the next few days.
Following heavy criticism from Benidorm hoteliers, weve been preparing a report about the other Spanish theme parks and their issues which should be finished in the next couple of days, once weve got back on top of the Whats on.
Its interesting reading.

Information is coming in daily about this project and attracting a lot of media interest, so well keep you up to date as more candidates join the race

Paramount Theme Park Murcia

 The full story of the project including present day status can be found by using the link to the history of the Paramount Theme Park Murcia