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Aerial view of Muelle Uno taken this week. Marilú Báez
Muelle Uno in Malaga port extends its commercial life for another 22 years and this is what it will cost
Business

Muelle Uno in Malaga port extends its commercial life for another 22 years and this is what it will cost

The quayside area, which is regularly graced by luxury megayachts in the marina alongside, expects to attract more than 14 million visitors to its retail and hospitality businesses this year

Ignacio Lillo

Malaga

Thursday, 15 August 2024, 19:16

Opciones para compartir

Long live the Muelle Uno commercial area in the Port of Malaga. This week the board of directors of the city's Port Authority has approved during an extraordinary session this week a vital extension of the current concession to the many businesses located in this commercial space. In this way the current team is being granted 22 more years to exploit these installations. The current arrangement was envisaged to end in 2040, so now they will be able to continue on until 2062.

In exchange for extra time, the businesses holding the concession - a group of wholly Malaga-based companies - will have to pay a total of 9.9 million euros, according to business sources. The group of concessionaries is led by Unicaja bank and also includes Edipsa, Malika and Myramar (the latter is the company that manages the site),

The law laid down by Puertos del Estado (Spain's national ports authority) established two ways to access this type of extension of the rights of use: by reinvestment in improvements to the concession itself or with a direct payment to the Port of Malaga. The second is the option that has finally been agreed after several years of negotiations. This change is backed by a favourable report from Puertos del Estado, although some of the union representatives voted against it.

Once this step has been approved and the new conditions have been communicated to all parties, those holding the concession will have a period of six months to pay this amount as a single payment into the port's accounts. This institution, in turn, will use these funds for its ambitious investment plan, whose star project is the transformation of Quay 8 (the fishing quay) into a new logistics centre for the movement of bulk goods and containers arriving on megafreighters.

At 98% occupancy

Muelle Uno is currently at 98% occupancy of its commercial spaces, and this year expects to attract more than 14 million visitors, in line with the strong tourist pull of the capital of the Costa del Sol city.

The partners needed this extension for two reasons: firstly, as a way of trying to recoup some of the major investment made to get the commercial venture off the ground. This amounted to 60 million euros of private funding. The nearby Palmeral area cost 30 million euros, which were basically paid for by the Junta de Andalucía, the regional government.

Muelle Uno's managers do not hide the fact that its beginnings were very hard, at a time of deep crisis, with "Spain on the verge of an economic bailout", which has meant that so far the profits have mostly occurred in the last three years of the 11 years the commercial centre has been in existence.

But they also defend this move to obtain the extension as a "need for social responsibility", as it aims to be "the guarantee that Muelle Uno will continue to be as it has been until now, a space with good service and maintenance, a meeting place for families and local people, with thousands of events and altruistic activities".

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