Access to Plaza Mayor from western ring road in direction of Malaga to be doubled
The project, submitted and financed by the shopping centre as part of a planned expansion, is now open for public consultation
A project to widen access to Plaza Mayor from the western ring road (MA-20) in the direction of Malaga with two lanes has now been submitted for public consultation. If approved, both the south and the north side will undero the same procedure.
The idea is to widen the slip road to minimise the periodic traffic jams in this area.
The project to rearrange access to the Plaza Mayor shopping centre was published in the official gazette of the province of Malaga (Bop) on Tuesday. The public has 20 working days to submit objections.
After more than four years of proceedings and despite the fact that it has been included in the project acceleration units of the city council and the Andalusian regional government, the expansion of the Plaza Mayor shopping centre remains unresolved.
Traffic is still the main obstacle for the project, which involves gaining 14,000 square metres for the expansion of the McArthurGlen Designer Outlet to the east and another 7,500 square metres for the extension of the current Plaza Mayor to the west, where it would occupy part of the car park next to the Guadalmar motorway.
Pulling out all the stops
During the processing of the necessary urban planning file to modify the general urban development plan (PGOU) to support this commercial expansion, hundreds of residents of the Guadalmar area presented objections because they believe that this project will aggravate the frequent traffic jams they already suffer.
SUR has also learnt that the city council's transport department has issued a report rejecting the project until traffic improvement measures are proposed.
The owners of Plaza Mayor are prepared to pull out all the stops to be allowed to carry out the expansion of the shopping centre, for which they signed an agreement with the city council in 2021. One of the latest proposals they have put on the table is the construction, at their own expense, of a park-and-ride car park with capacity for 1,100 vehicles that will serve to accommodate the cars of drivers who currently use Plaza Mayor to leave their cars and take the Cercanías line to the centre of Malaga.
Another measure that Plaza Mayor is already implementing is the construction of a new road that will connect it with the old N-340. This project, which involves an investment of around four million euros, includes the construction of an underpass under the local train line, for which a bridge has already been demolished. The owners of the shopping centre are confident that, by the first months of 2026, this new access from the north will be operational, which could take traffic away from the entrance from the Guadalmar dual carriageway and improve connections to the plots that could house the park-and-ride facility.
