Paramount Spain News

This story courtesy of OPP:

The masterplan for the Paramount theme park in Murcia was unveiled at an official function last week, with an expected opening date set for 2015.

The park will be located in an 158 hectare site on the Mazarron/Alhama de Murcia border, about 15 minutes from the beach and marina resort of Puerto de Mazarron. It will be zoned into different thematic areas inspired by the likes of Star Trek, Titanic and Mission Impossible plus a much larger ‘Lifestyle Centre’ with no less than two five-star hotels, three of four-star status and several more three-star resorts. Also announced were themed shopping malls, restaurants, bars and clubs, a conference centre with the largest meeting room capacity in Murcia – over 3,000 seats – and an open-air auditorium to host 15,000 people.

Chris Mercer, Director of Murcia-based Mercers headquartered in Mazarron, said: “It is indeed a huge privilege to be the recipient of a landmark Theme Park in the local area that will rival Disneyland Paris and attract millions of visitors each year. It’s also highly encouraging to follow the progress that has been made on the masterplan in terms of design, investment and timescales. Samper estimated on Friday that the project would directly create 10,000 construction jobs and upon opening, many more. Undoubtedly Paramount will have a positive effect locally - not least on the property market and house values. We have been through some hard times but Paramount’s confidence and faith proves that the lure and attraction of Spain will prevail.”

Michael Bartok, the executive vice president for licensing at Paramount Pictures, reiterated that Spain was “key” to his company and highlighted Murcia’s 300 sunny days each year as a major bonus. Meanwhile Valcárcel was quick to make reference to the current economic climate in his speech saying that the Theme Park was being launched “with the support and enthusiasm of some and the doubt of others”. He felt that in times of crisis what you cannot do is “stand still” and “while the road is tough, the outcome is sure.” It is reported that Flagship Projects and Paramount Pictures have signed the license agreement for 30 years - renewable for an unspecified period.

After yesterday's news about Jesus Semper, the man with the "brains" behind the Paramount Murcia project, being accused of all sorts of illegal financial activities, it seems that it's not such a problem when it comes to the Paramount Murcia project going ahead.

Although Semper's company, Santa Monica Financial Services, is the main party behind the acquisition of the funding for the park, it is now a joint company, called Proyectos Emblemáticos Murcianos, between Santa Monica (80%), the local development institute (10%) and the regional Murcia government (10%). 

So although the "main man" is in a bit of bother, the actual company driving the project forward isn't just Semper. 

The word on the street is that what happened yesterday isn't going to affect the future of the Paramount Pictures theme park in Murcia.

Mind you, we've not had any comments from Paramount themselves yet so we'll see, but things aren't really as bad as they seemed yesterday.

And by the way, it appears that Grupo Fuertes has entered into an agreement regarding the location of the park....which is to be Alhama!  No official confirmation yet, just some insider knowledge.  Let's see if he's right.

I started my blog today hoping over the next few months we could really get a positive feeling about the Paramount Spain project.

But it seems today that the project may have taken rather a big blow where it hurts.

Jesus Semper, who is the owner of the company Santa Monica Capital, and holder of the pre-licence to build the Paramount Park in Murcia, has today been accused on building related corruption charges after the Guardia Civil raided his home.  The charges include money laundering, misappropriation of public funds and illegal negotiations with civil servants.

In other words, it sounds like he's been paying off people in the town hall for building planning favours.

Oh dear, that doesn't sound good at all.

These corruption charges against the man behind the Paramount in Murcia project surely put the whole project in jeopardy now!

This could be the shortest blog in history.

I'll keep you up to date with the latest....

Hola!  I am the Paramount Spain Informer.  My mission is to give you all the latest news, information, details, gossip and just about everything to do with Paramount's progress in opening their theme park in Murcia.

Why is it so exciting?

Well, anything that's positive in the media about Spain is worth shouting about and keep shouting about it.

That's why I'm here.  I want to be positive about this great initiative that could have a big impact for us property owners in the Murcia area.  It's also going to create several thousand jobs in the area which must surely be very needed and some real postitive news too.

So that's what I'm up to.  I'm taking an obsessive interest in the Paramount Spain project and I'll be sharing all my findings with you here.

Whilst I start digging trying to find the proposed location for this, let me know if there's anything else specifically you'd like me to find out.  I'm certainly not afraid to ask the right people.