Palma.With work having been halted on the Palma convention centre and hotel, the city council is desperate to try and recuperate some of the money invested in the beleagured project which was due to have given Palma's business tourism industry a boost but has become an embarrasing white elephant.
Lack of funds
Work on the construction of both the convention centre and the hotel was halted due to a lack of funds and a lack of interest in the concession to manage either of the two buildings.
However, while the council is now reviewing all of the international bids which were rejected by the previous Socialist-led local authority in an attempt to secure a management deal, the council wants to sell off the hotel and use the money raised to restart work on the convention centre.
Palma City Councillor for Tourism, Alvaro Gijon, said that an estimated 30 million euros is needed to complete the construction of the convention centre and a further 35 million is owed to construction company Acciona, and the hotel could be sold for between 30 and 40 million euros.
According to Gijon, construction of the hotel is 80 percent complete and would therefore be able to be opened before the convention centre which is 70 percent complete and needs nearly another year's worth of construction to complete the project.
The opposition Socialists, who began building the ambitious project, claim the operation could be a high risk one but the PP-run council claim they have little option in order to resolve the problem of the centre and hotel.