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The University of Malaga (UMA) plans to put out to tender a plot of land totalling 45,000 square metres located opposite Malaga Airport, to be used for car parking.
The plot had remained in oblivion and it "unexpectedly" came to light last spring during the planning of some land clearance work that the educational institution needed doing across its various campuses. It is one of the properties that the British economist Marjorie Grice-Hutchinson enjoyed using during her years of residence in Malaga. She had already willed to the UMA her family estate of San Julián, the current home of the Grice-Hutchinson Experimentation Centre, and her valuable library. However, La Máquina Grande - according to university records - was acquired in 1994 from the historian for 21,307,500 pesetas when José María Martín Delgado was rector.
The university has not hidden its surprise at the rather sudden appearance of this "forgotten" land and also admits that it is an "opportunity" to make it profitable at a time when the UMA is in dire financial straits, which has led the Junta de Andalucía to bail it out with a loan of 48.5 million euros.
Nevertheless, the project to convert this land - classified as undeveloped land for special protection - into a car park still needs municipal permits to be approved for urban planning purposes. "We have been working with city hall for a couple of months now, attending to all the requests for documentation that they require so that we can finally get it off the ground in the first few months of 2025," said Salvador Merino, vice-rector of infrastructures at the university. He is convinced that no problems will arise: "The main stumbling block, if there had been one, would have been that it cannot be used for car parking, but that has been ruled out from the outset."
Located behind Ibericar, this is a plot of land where, decades ago, numerous eucalyptus trees were planted to help keep the land near the Guadalhorce river dry and thus counteract the risk of flooding. "But in addition to its capacity to retain water in the soil, the composition of the eucalyptus leaves makes the soil toxic, so other species could not be planted," said the vice-rector. He believes, however, that far from being a problem for the design of the future "airport car park", the numerous trees on the plot can be of service to this change of use to the land: "The trees are arranged in rows, so let's use them for parking, as the eucalyptus trees themselves will serve as a division for cars without the need to touch any trees."
Finally, Merino is optimistic that, in a few months, land that has so far "fallen into disuse" can be made profitable, in line with the objective set by the Junta of cost containment and "the search for alternatives that allow for an increase in income."
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