Marbella heliport is met with strong demand: three companies aspire to take charge of this facility
The town hall gives priority to the adaptation of the facilities and commitment to obtain the necessary heliport permit in the bidding process
The tender for the heliport that Juan Antonio Roca - the powerful urban planning advisor for Marbella town hall between 1991 and 2006 and mastermind of major corruption case Malaya - owned in the Los Manchones Altos area has met strong demand. As municipal sources have confirmed to SUR, three companies have submitted bids to the town hall's public auction system.
In reality, Marbella town hall is not contracting the operation of the heliport, but simply the private use of the facilities, which have a hangar (675 square metres), offices (115), a security guard stall (just under 62), as well as a water tank and a transformation centre, totalling an area of 4,868.79 square metres on a plot of 13,812.50 square metres. In order to operate the facilities as a heliport, the successful bidder will have to obtain the necessary licence from the Spanish aviation safety agency (Aesa).
Commitment to obtain the green light from Aesa accounts for 35% of the bid score, while the suitability of the facilities represents 45%. The remaining 20 out of 100 points will be awarded for the highest offered fee. The starting figure is 5,176 euros per month (excluding taxes); an amount based on an old lease contract signed in 2011 by the court-appointed administrator of the company linked to Juan Antonio Roca, which owned the infrastructure, for 4,000 euros per month, updated according to the accumulated CPI since then (29.4%).
The concession will have a duration of four years, with the possibility of a four-year extension. It is expected that it will provide the municipal coffers with a minimum net income of almost 497,000 euros over those eight years (62,112 euros per year).
The contracting committee is still in the initial phase of evaluating the proposals and has not yet opened any of the envelopes corresponding to each of the three evaluable aspects that will determine who will be the successful bidder.
Compensation for corruption case
The town hall took ownership of the heliport in July 2016, after the court ruled that the people of Marbella should recover it as payment for Roca's civil liability in the Saqueo I case (one of the five cases, including Malaya, for which the former urban planning councillor was convicted). The municipality formally accepted ownership in January 2020, after the site had been valued at 635,000 euros in 2018.
Roca had obtained the heliport in 2001 through an administrative concession to the company Heliponto Marbella for a period of 50 years. He was able to use it until he was sent to prison on 29 March 2006, where he remained until being granted conditional release in February 2019.
In the same process, the town hall received the La Caridad and the Siete Corchones properties, worth 5.08 million and 1.52 million euros, respectively.
