Benidorm Approves 20 Hotels and 2,300 High-Rise Flats

Benidorm to approve 2,300 flats and 20 hotels in 20-story towers

While other cities debate height limits, Benidorm's plenary session is set to approve around twenty hotels and more than 2,300 flats in skyscrapers with a minimum height of 20 floors. The final draft of the partial plan Levante Extension (Ensanche Levante), published by La Vanguardia, reaches the plenary with Mayor Toni Pérez (PP) holding an absolute majority and a familiar argument: "The vertical city model characteristic of Benidorm will be trinc, which has made us a benchmark in sustainability."

Some participants in the debate highlight the contrast: in a city where millions live, such heights would not be permitted, while here twenty floors are authorized on one of the most strained stretches of the Mediterranean coast. The affected area covers 575,371.20 square meters.

What the Levante Extension builds: all the figures of the plan

The distribution reveals much about the purpose of construction. The plan foresees 1,564 tourist dwellings, around 780 residential flats, and about twenty hotel establishments. In short: tourism takes the largest share of built space, while permanent housing appears almost as an afterthought.

The green areas are what the town hall highlights when speaking of sustainability: a central park of 61,629 square meters, nearly 13,000 square meters of gardens, and more than 23,000 square meters of pedestrian free spaces. 13,917 square meters are reserved for educational uses in two plots. The agreement going to plenary includes a requirement for the Urban Interest Group (Agrupación de Interés Urbanístico), which promotes the development, to verify compliance with the plan's environmental and territorial forecasts every two years.

Once approved, landowners can start the procedures for the urbanization and replotting project. That is when the real calendar begins, not just the photo opportunity.

Is the vertical city sustainable or a windfall with good press?

According to the official narrative, concentrating building in height frees up land and reduces the footprint of dispersed urbanism. Under this prism, Benidorm would be the virtuous exception compared to villa and terraced house developments that have been devouring square kilometers of nature in northern Alicante.

The other half of the analysis argues exactly the opposite. Concentrating heavy building in towers requires more energy to lift water and people, and forces blocks to be separated so ground floors receive light, which in turn consumes more asphalted land and transport. The comparison with medium-height cities—more livable, according to this reading—comes off badly. And if the effect on the coast is added, the diagnosis becomes gloomy: some speak of a windfall and a coastline already destroyed, arguing that the wealth generated does not reach those who live there year-round, with wages that do not match rents.

Here, it is not a project being discussed. It is a country model.

Why it isn't built like this elsewhere in Spain

The question hovering over the conversation is why beach zones allow 20-story buildings for tourists while cities where millions live prohibit them. The most repeated thesis: height limitations increase land prices and, consequently, housing costs. Under that logic, raising the buildable ceiling is not an aesthetic whim but a way to expand supply. More height, more housing, lower price: the syllogism works on paper.

The calculation doesn't close alone. Some argue that facing the housing shortage there are only two paths—reduce demand or increase supply—and neither is being taken; quite the contrary. According to that same narrative, cheap blocks from previous decades were raised with entire developments of masses that no current regulation would allow, and they were affordable for the working class of the time. If the Benidorm model works, some predict it will be exported to the rest of the country. The problem, they say, is water.

How many people fit, what price remains, and who buys

Adding 2,300 flats and twenty hotels to a municipality already saturated in high season has a predictable consequence on price and another on patience. A recurring warning among those who vacation there is not to go in August. Those who avoid it claim you can perfectly fit at any hour walking a few hundred meters towards the Levante end or the start of Poniente.

For those looking at the market with investor eyes, the reading is the opposite. It is argued that in Benidorm there are still payable flats compared to other coastal markets and that this window will soon close. The part of the cove that already belongs to Villajoyosa is pointed out as the zone with the best relationship between price and expectation. Added to this is foreign demand: British residents settled year-round and international buyers, as cited in Torrevieja or Alicante, a phenomenon that part of the analysis perceives as added pressure on prices.

What remains to be seen

The plan will be approved, owners will move paperwork, and cranes will eventually arrive, because brickwork had been waiting its turn for a long time. The doubt is not whether Benidorm will grow upwards again: that is already decided. The doubt is whether the Levante Extension will be the laboratory that other municipalities discreetly copy or the nth tower of a coastline that can no longer bear more weight. And regarding water, doubted in the debate, there is also no answer.