Top international polo club to get five-star complex, designer shops and an equestrian showground
Top international polo club to get five-star complex, designer shops and an equestrian showground
ONE of the world's most prestigious polo clubs has been given the go-ahead to expand and build a luxury holiday and residential complex in its vicinity.
Santa María Polo Club in Sotogrande (Cádiz province) will get a select club house, villas, a sponsors' pavilion, specialist retail outlets, and the already-named Hotel del Polo Gran Lujo, a five-star establishment.
The Mora Figueroa family wants to invest just over €1 billion in the new facilities, and this week the company Glenton - which owns the land - got the green light from the regional government of Andalucía to go ahead.
Glenton has been facing a mountain of red tape, including trying to make the project fit with the general town layout plans of neighbouring municipalities.
Paradoxically, the regional government would not initially give planning permission unless the project included a certain number of low-cost State-subsidised homes for first-time buyers on a meagre income, known as Viviendas de Protección Oficial (Properties of Official Protection, or VPOs) - despite the polo club and its planned complex being aimed at the crème de la crème of the sport and ultra-high net worth visitors and homebuyers.
Months of negotiations ensued, and Glenton finally agreed with San Roque town council that the developer would hand over a given portion of land to the latter to exempt them from the requirement to build social housing.
The aim is for Santa María Polo Club - already in the top five in the world - to become comparable with the élite club in Palm Beach, Florida.
As well as the €1bn 'equine village', with facilities for national and international polo teams and a showground for global-level dressage and showjumping, the plans include €400 million to be invested in the club itself, five-star hotels with capacity for up to 600 guests, a shopping centre selling top designer brands, and luxury villas.
Work will start in 2016, and the resulting complex is expected to create at least 5,000 new jobs, most of them permanent.
