{"id":107403,"date":"2025-09-01T17:58:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-01T17:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/107403\/"},"modified":"2025-09-01T17:58:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T17:58:09","slug":"benidorm-aims-upmarket-with-spains-tallest-residential-tower","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/107403\/","title":{"rendered":"Benidorm aims upmarket with Spain\u2019s tallest residential tower"},"content":{"rendered":"

Benidorm was once described in a guidebook as \u201chugely high-rise, vaguely Vegas and definitely dodgy\u201d.<\/p>\n

In an attempt to take its image upmarket, the Spanish seaside resort, which boasts the most skyscrapers per capita in the world, is doubling down on its architectural tradition by raising its tallest building yet.<\/p>\n

The council has approved the construction of a luxury 230m (754ft) skyscraper that will be the highest residential tower in Spain.<\/p>\n

\"Rendering<\/p>\n

The high-rise will be Spain\u2019s fourth-tallest building<\/p>\n

The project, backed by the property developer TM Grupo Inmobiliario, will have 64 floors and 260 flats, along with gyms, pools, a private cinema and a sky bar with an astronomical observatory. Developers expect to break ground this year and completion is expected in 2028 at a cost of \u20ac27.5 million.<\/p>\n

The building, TM Tower, will mark the further rise of a town celebrating the 900th anniversary of its foundation, which until the 1950s was no more than a fishing village. It will eclipse Benidorm\u2019s 202m Intempo building and rank fourth in height nationwide, trailing Madrid\u2019s Torre de Cristal (249m), Torre Moeve (248m) and Torre PwC (236m).<\/p>\n

Benidorm, long dismissed by critics as brash and overbuilt, has since the 1960s experimented with Manhattan-inspired zoning laws that reward slenderness with height. The result is a skyline that, although often derided as \u201cBeni-York\u201d, has been hailed by urbanists for its efficiency. \u201cThere are building coefficients,\u201d Jos\u00e9 Luis Camarasa, who was the city\u2019s chief architect from 1981 until last year, told El Pais. \u201cSo, the slimmer and more slender the building, the higher it can go. That is why our current reference is New York.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 Retired people flee the weather, the (broken) NHS and all the \u2018wokery\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

Camarasa has long defended the strategy, pointing out that it preserves space at ground level. Under Benidorm\u2019s most recent urban plan, 65 per cent of land must remain public, while only 10 per cent can be built upon. \u201cIt\u2019s the famous anecdote of the pack of cigarettes placed lengthwise. If you lift it and stand it up, it has the same density,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Beachgoers<\/p>\n

Benidorm has one of the densest collections of skyscrapers in Europe<\/p>\n

ROBERTO MACHADO NOA\/LIGHTROCKET\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

The vertical concentration has produced one of the densest collections of high-rises in Europe, while keeping sprawl at bay. \u201cIn these 50 years, 30,000 homes have been built,\u201d Camarasa said. \u201cThat figure, during the boom years, would have been reached in just a few years in any coastal town in Alicante.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Camarasa, TM Tower is both vindication and unfinished business. \u201cMy dream has always been to beat the record of the Shard [310m] in London,\u201d he said. The coral-shaped skyscraper will not achieve that but it will once again redraw the skyline of a town that has made a virtue of looking upwards.<\/p>\n

\u2022 New York Times blames towering egos for London\u2019s \u2018jumbled skyline\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

However, the policy has not always been without difficulties. Construction on Intempo started in 2007 but the collapse of the property sector reduced it to a white elephant and it was unfinished until 2021. Many of its flats remain unsold.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Benidorm was once described in a guidebook as \u201chugely high-rise, vaguely Vegas and definitely dodgy\u201d. In an attempt…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,1120,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-107403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}