Spain Begins Demolishing a 411-Room, 20-Floor Hotel After 20 Years Without Guests

The excavators aren’t yet on the beach, but the administrative machinery has already started moving. On September 30, 2026, the Junta de Andalucía opened the procedure to restore territorial legality concerning the El Algarrobico hotel in Carboneras, in the province of Almería. The Andalusian administration specifies that this file paves the way for reclaiming the land, including the building’s demolition.

No demolition date has been announced.

A twenty-story skeleton facing the Mediterranean

The building comprises 20 floors and 411 rooms. It was erected in the early 2000s along the Carboneras coast, within the Cabo de Gata-Níjar Natural Park. Environmental groups had denounced construction in a protected zone, in a coastal strip where regulations limit development. Despite its hundreds of rooms, the establishment never hosted a single guest.

A magistrate ordered the halt of construction twenty years ago. Since then, the structure has stood tall facing the sea, visible from far along the Almería coast, like a concrete skeleton that no one ever dressed.

The developer, Azata del Sol, held a building permit issued by the municipality. This permit functioned as a shield for two decades: the administration could not cancel it, and without cancellation, the path to demolition remained blocked. In February 2026, the High Court of Justice of Andalusia even ordered the definitive archiving of the urban planning procedure because the town hall had submitted an incomplete file to the Andalusian Advisory Council.

On July 7, however, Carboneras’ municipal council canceled the permit.

What the Junta has launched, and what remains to be done

The procedure opened on September 30 directly extends this cancellation, which the Andalusian administration regards as the safest legal route toward demolition. It constitutes the next step in a roadmap described by Rocío Díaz, the Housing counselor: the Junta has initiated the process that will allow demolition and the recovery of the protected space.

The September 30 file is a step, not an order to demolish.

On October 8, the Spanish government and the Junta agreed to advance in a coordinated manner, both on the procedure and on the demolition. Their framework remains the protocol signed in November 2011 for the recovery of El Algarrobico’s beach. This document commits the Ministry to address the demolition, while the Junta handles clearance and proper waste management. The meeting took place within the Joint Monitoring Commission, which had not met since June 23.

This protocol is nearly fifteen years old. It already foresaw, when the time came, the distribution of tasks between the State and the region. What was missing was a solid legal basis to act, and that is precisely what canceling the license aims to provide.

7.1 million euros and over 60,000 tonnes of debris

The demolition is estimated at 7.1 million euros. Spreading this across 411 rooms, it amounts to roughly 17,300 euros per room to be demolished, for a hotel that has never rented a single one.

The debris would exceed 60,000 tonnes. By way of comparison, the Eiffel Tower weighs about 10,100 tonnes: it would require removing the equivalent of six Eiffel Towers in concrete and steel. This mass must be cleared and treated, a task assigned to the Junta by the 2011 protocol. The project would take place at the edge of a beach, within a natural park, suggesting a rather unusual logistical operation.

The schedule remains the great unknown: no start or end dates have been announced. The Joint Commission, established in Seville in March 2016, is chaired this year by the Junta, from March 7, 2026 to March 6, 2027. It will oversee the roadmap that is supposed to one day lead to the restoration of the site.

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Sources: eno.ombudsman.europa.eu | elindependiente.com | eleconomista.es