Planned site of Ciudad de la Música.
Credit: Ayuntamiento de Estepona.
Two new massive construction projects are planned for the outskirts of Estepona, and neither will leave residents indifferent.
The first is the ‘City of Music’, the brainchild of Sandra García-Sanjuan, creator of Marbella’s enormously successful summer-long Starlite festival. The ambitious nature of the project is likely to take years and will be the first ‘city’ of music in the World.
Planned to be constructed on a site near the Selwo Adventure animal park, García Sanjuan plans for the ‘Starlite City’ to offer audiovisual events, educational facilities, and hotels all year round, as well as employing thousands of people from the area.
At the same time, another massive project that has been on the back burner since 2008, looks like it is about to be given the go-ahead. La Lobilla, will be the biggest shopping centre in Spain, even bigger than La Cañada in Marbella.
La Lobilla will be the biggest shopping centre in Spain
The planned commercial complex was thought to have been dead in the water with no hope of recovery, but there have been whispers around the Junta de Andalucía about a reapplying for a licence. 16 years after the original project was dropped, the concept is said to be back on the table with pending analysis and study by the Ministry of Environmental Sustainability of the Junta de Andalucía. Given that the Ministry has just given the green light for an immense water park in drought-stricken Coín, in the Guardalhorce Valley, environmentalists are not optimistic about stopping the biggest shopping centre in Spain from opening up in Estepona.
Both projects will need to win over the local population though, when they are submitted to a public consultation at some point in the future.
