Demolition of iconic Hotel Los Alamos in Torremolinos makes way for 'flex living' apartments

José Rodríguez Cámara

Monday, 26 August 2024, 20:51

For the time being, only the sign on the outside fence of the old Hotel Los Álamos in Torremolinos has survived the bulldozers that have systematically demolished what was left of the dilapidated establishment, which has been out of use since 2014. As confirmed by Luis Acacio Ortega, the deputy general manager of the developer of the 'flex living' apartment complex that will occupy the hotel's site, Nuovit Corporate, the demolition work has been carried out on schedule and has been finished a month after it started in mid-July.

The company in charge was FT Demoliciones from Malaga, which, for this job, used a technique that consisted of demolishing from the top down, using a mechanical arm that allowed work to be carried out at a safe distance. Nothing remains of what was the original building; in its place, there are now just a couple of mounds of rubble. Parallel to the demolition, the construction of the future residential flats is also under way.

Historian Carlos Blanco, official chronicler of Torremolinos, recalls that Hotel Los Álamos was officially inaugurated on 22 July 1960. The construction resulted in a hotel of "modern lines" with 51 rooms. The rooms, he notes, were furnished "in old Spanish style". The ribbon cutting, recalls the researcher, was important, as it brought together numerous personalities from the social life of Malaga, a province which, at that time, was beginning to become aware of its potential as a tourist destination.

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The first owner of the hotel was the Bilbao-born Javier Martínez de Bedoya, a member of Spanish parliament, together with his wife, Mercedes Sanz Bachiller. The latter, who lived a long life (she died at the age of 96), played an important role in the dictatorship, thanks to the setting up of the so-called Auxilio de Invierno (winter relief), inspired, according to the review dedicated to Sanz Bachiller by the royal academy of history, by the Nazi Winterhilfe, a campaign to promote charitable works. This organisation was finally christened Auxilio Social, with a national scope and Sanz Bachiller as its head.

The hotel establishment went out of business when the last company that managed it went bankrupt. For years, it was at the mercy of vandalism and was also a place of squatting.

Finally, in January of this year, it was announced that the developer Nuovit Homes was launching the Oceanika project. It involves the construction of 180 'flex living' residential apartments covering a surface area of 15,000 square metres, which, according to the timetable, will be operational in 18 months. The symbolic laying of the first stone is scheduled for mid-September with a formal ceremony, according to Nuovit.