A luxury hotel in Malaga's famous Correos office tower: this is how the building could be transformed

A luxury hotel for Malaga with 165 rooms, a roof terrace with swimming pool, spa, and a large restaurant on the 14th floor that crowns the tower, from which there will be 360-degree views of the city, some fifty metres above sea level. These are some of the features that the hotel conceived by the owner of the old Correos post office building, Israeli magnate Haim Tsuff, could have in the property that he bought at auction from the Junta de Andalucía for 23.5 million euros in 2019.

In the documentation presented by this businessman to change the use of the post office designation, so it can be used as a hotel, to the urban planning department, he provides an initial outline of what could be the transformation of this 1986 building, which has been closed for more than a decade and which is covered with a net due to detachments of the material that covers its façade.

This preliminary study on the physical change that the building could undergo, carried out by the architect Tristán Martínez for the consultancy firm Ejecución del Planeamiento, is based on the idea of increasing the building's floor area without increasing its current volume. This would be achieved by demolishing the basement facing the Avenida de la Aurora and replacing it with a new construction of the same height (14 metres), but with an interior of ground floor plus three others that would allow 19 rooms per floor, which, added to the 108 that would go into the tower facing the Avenida de Andalucía, would make a hotel of 165 rooms. However, in this initial sketch, which will probably be modified by another preliminary project, it is suggested that the number of rooms could be increased if the spaces are redistributed according to their category.

Under the construction of the new basement level, two levels could be built with a capacity of 93 parking spaces, which would meet the demand for parking spaces for a high-class hotel. The ground floor of this basement, which would extend its built surface area with a new part built on what was once the area of the loading and unloading bays, would house a large commercial premises facing Avenida de la Aurora, and internal hotel services such as kitchen, storerooms, goods, changing rooms, laundry and staff canteen.

According to the developer's studies, this hotel when operational could employ 150 people on a permanent basis, and more than 210 during its construction, which is valued at 28.9 million euros, of which 20.4 million is dedicated to the refurbishment of the building and 8.5 million to the construction of the new base.

The main entrance to the hotel would remain on the façade facing Avenida de Andalucía, and several interior lounges, a cafeteria, offices and a television and games room would be fitted out on the floors below the main tower, which could accommodate 12 rooms on each of the nine floors reserved for accommodation, as well as the aforementioned restaurant on the upper floor. It is also proposed that the rooftop area of the new construction will be a large terrace with a cafeteria, sunbathing areas and a swimming pool.

As for the treatment of the façades, the initial architectural design proposes to completely eliminate the lattice panels that covers them so that the rooms can have more light, ventilation and views. Likewise, the current interior section behind the lattice, which was designed to maintain the façade, would be replaced by a continuous base that would allow all the rooms in the tower to have their own terrace.

As for the inclusion of landscaped areas, they are proposed for several areas, including the blind façades of the new basement and in the walkways of the tower, to add some 'green' to the exterior enclosures, which are not yet finalised but which could be glazed or similar. In any case, the final details of the hotel's architecture have not been finalised and will depend on the agreement reached between the current owners and the chain that will take over its development and operation. Tsuff's representative, Francisco Manuel Ruiz, has always expressed the intention that it should be of the highest worldwide category, such as the Mandarin, Ritz Carlton or Four Seasons.

According to the project submitted by the hotel's promoters, "There are currently approximately 1,000 five-star hotel beds in the city of Malaga, although only the 380 beds in the only existing five-star luxury hotel, the Gran Hotel Miramar, can be counted as luxury hotel beds." Likewise, the private document refers to a report issued by the municipal urban planning department on 13 February, which concluded that, after a comparison with the hotel offer in other cities, "it seems to be demonstrated that the hotel offer in Malaga still has room for improvement, mainly in the higher hotel categories".

Specifically, it is pointed out that "although in general terms it has improved considerably in recent years, having gone from around 3,000 beds in 1995 to around 15,000 at present, it has comparatively fewer beds than the city of Seville, which should be a benchmark in this respect". Thus, it points out that Seville has six five-star hotels and another six five-star luxury hotels. Likewise, Granada has six five-star hotels and two five-star luxury hotels. For this reason, it concludes that, "It is considered reasonable to be able to achieve an offer at least comparable in terms of tourist quality to other Andalusian capitals."

However, as SUR reported on Monday, the future of this hotel project depends, in the first place, on the change of use of the building being cleared at the urban planning level. To this end, the municipal urban planning department will consult the Andalusian regional government to clarify whether or not the file to be processed for the transformation of the building requires a prior environmental assessment procedure by the regional ministry of sustainability, environment and blue economy. Submission for this environmental scheme of the regional government could mean leaving the project on hold for one or two years until it is obtained.