The Mayor of Nerja has announced that twenty firms have put forward bids to produce the El Playazo development plans. Six of these bids have already been excluded due to lack of documentation, but the other fourteen are to go forward into the tendering process that will be determined in July. Once the contract is awarded, the €71,000 project will start within 11 months.
Mayor José Alberto Armijo has previously described the development as the “grand tourism resource that Nerja needs” being “the biggest development in the history of Nerja”.
The new development includes new homes, hotels, sports facilities and an enlarged beach area and promenade. The main road between Torrox and Nerja that runs behind the beach will become (according to the Mayor) “a grand boulevard that will connect Nerja with its most western part and the future marina”. The beach will be extended and will have 70,000 square metres of space and along with the new promenade will take up the first 100m from the top of the beach as it stands now.
The next 100m will become a “maritime sports environment zone” and will be 60,000 square metres in size for leisure and sports activities. The final 200m up to the main road will be developed for hotel accommodation of some 1,100 rooms, in one or more new hotels.
The northern section, from the main road onwards, will become a residential area, with permission for the construction of up to 2,200 new homes. In total the development will be over a million square metres in size, being seven times the size of the planned new development in Fuente del Baden, which up to now is the biggest in this area.