I’m Laura Leyshon and I’m Las Palmas’ resident property expert. I work for RE/MAX Cony Overseas, one of the city’s oldest estate agencies and the first RE/MAX office to open in Europe. Cony Overseas has an excellent local reputation and has helped hundreds of foreign buyers and sellers in Las Palmas and all over Gran […]
Las Palmas Building Sector Bounces Back Despite License Delays
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria city expects to make over five million euros this year from new build licenses, property renovations, and other building project fees.
The city budget predicts building license income of 5.14 million in 2017. This will be first time since the beginning of the crisis in 2008 that fees will be over the five million threshold and it’s a 139% increase on the 2016 figure.
The spike in building license applications in Las Palmas is already causing problems; the Town Hall dealing has a large backlog of applications and builders and homeowners currently face delays of up to a year for large projects.
The Urbanismo department of the Town Hall has already stated that it is working to solve the problem which is caused by low staffing levels after years of minimal building activity in Las Palmas. It is looking at employing new staff or signing a deal to get staff from the Gran Canaria Government (Cabildo).
Huge New Las Palmas Building Planned
The Guanarteme district of Las Palmas is about to get 300 new apartments if a new build project comes to fruition.
A 20-strong investment consortium that includes Satocan (owners of the Gran Canaria Sheraton) and the Dinosol supermarket group plans to resurrect a 300-property building project from the pre-crisis days.
The group now owns the 8000m² build site (the guide price was €30m) that was originally acquired and cleared by the now-defunct Spanish company Martinsa-Fadesa. It planned to put up a huge 13-storey building called the Gran Guanarteme but went bankrupt before building started.
The plot in question is at the western end of Mesa y Lopez street and is bordered by Mario César, Fernando Guanarteme and the Plaza de América.
The site already has permission for up to four buildings that can be 10, nine and seven storeys high although there are no public plans for what the new investors plan to build.
We do know that the consortium plans to start work before the end of 2017.
