The In Tiempo skyscraper in Benidorm which is still under construction.
Picture by Brian Hickey It was to be Europe's tallest residential building, a monument to the boom years when the construction industry helped Spain's economy become one of the fastest growing in the world. Now, the In Tempo apartment block in Benidorm has become a metaphor for the madness of the 10-year building bonanza that brought the country to its knees. The 200 metre (650ft) high twin towers containing 269 flats are now the responsibility of the so-called "bad bank" established to consolidate the toxic assets of the country's bankrupt savings banks. Most of these assets consist of unsold or unfinished property built during the boom. The bank, full name Sociedad de Gestión de Activos de la Restructuración Bancaria (Sareb), assumed the €54m (£47m) debt of Caixa Galicia, the savings bank that funded In Tempo in 2005. In a symptom of the banking recklessness that had become the norm, Caixa Galicia offered the developer Olga Urbana €93m to build the tower on the strength of the developer putting up a paltry €3,100 in seed capital. Benidorm has so many tower blocks that from the air it resembles Hong Kong more than the sleepy fishing town it once was. Despite these high-rise buildings, the 47-storey In Tempo, visible from six miles away, dwarfs everything in the area. It has been dogged by contractual problems and in 2011, 13 workers were injured, two of them seriously, when a lift collapsed. Last year workers, angered by continued late payments, refused to enter the site unless they were paid. The building was due to be completed in 2009. It still remains only 94% finished. Among the many headaches Sareb faces is a long list of creditors and the owners of the 80 flats that have been pre-sold. The remaining flats will go on the market at a lower price with Sareb saying it is willing to listen to any proposals. The "bad bank" believes foreign buyers are interested in buying the entire block – but some apparently would only do so if there were no tenants, complicating
Size: 3386px × 5100px
Location: Spain
Photo credit: © Brian Hickey Photography / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: abandoned, beach, benidorm, blue, crisis, poniente, sky, spain, spaniards, spanish, tempo, tourism
