"I was poor white trash, no glitter, no glamour, but I'm not ashamed of anything" said worldwide perennially angry American rapper, Eminem.
This week I visited yet another abandoned and possibly the eeriest Canarian building that I have ever urbex'd. This chilling building stands with a questionable history, and, like Eminem, has no shame, no glamour and for sure, no glitter.
Troubled Fuerteventura
Before we go any further, let's deal with the elephant in the room. Fuerteventura and its troubled past with hotel developments. At the time I visited, a huge court battle has erupted over a RIU hotel just up the road from the abandoned development here. Battles like this one are far from unusual in the Canary Islands.
The RIU Oliva Beach furore..
The RIU-owned Oliva Beach hotel featured by TUI and other travel companies in the UK is facing the threat of demolition. The Ministry of Ecological Transition has ordered the three-star all-inclusive RUI Oliva Beach Resort on Fuerteventura to be knocked down. The 800-room hotel sits on Grandes Playas beach on maritime-terrestrial public land within the protected area of the Corralejo Natural Park.
RIU-owned Geofond Numero Uno Lanzarote was granted a concession to operate the hotel and apartment complex in 2003 on the land, in exchange for ceding ownership of Lobos Island to the State, according to Canarian Weekly. However, the Ministry has accused Geafond of ‘repeated breaches’, including unauthorised building and a failure to dedicate a portion of the area for public use.
The Ministry ordered the demolition of illegal structures in 2022, but the company has failed to comply so the Ministry declared last week that the concession had expired.
RIU has told local media it will ‘explore all legal avenues’ to prevent the hotel being knocked down. It is arguing that the Ministry’s resolution is not legally binding.
The case continues..
Except..
..the Oliva Beach case only really tells half the story. As was common in the 70's and 80's in the Canaries, hotels were built on protected land and often without planning permission. In most cases, these hotels either died through natural evolution or simply never opened. Then there were those hotels that started building around 2006/07 and then had to stop due to lenders pulling the plug during the financial crisis of 2008. But, this development is different, way different. Strong rumours exist of organised crime being behind the failure of this hotel and all of the research that I have done would suggest some degree of authenticity to this. Let me explain..
Do be careful when exploring these sites!
How hotel financing works..
If you've ever stayed at a really upmarket swanky hotel and thought "wow, this place must have cost a fortune to build", you'd be right. The average cost of building a new hotel in western Europe in 2022 was just over $70m. It's no small change and not exactly the kind of loan you'd discuss with your retail bank!
Hotel financing..
Lenders, keen to protect their investment, grant development money in stages. For example, "build phase one and we'll then give you the next $20m etc". So you can see how hotel developments like this and many others in the Canaries simply stop, mid-building. The lender simply refuses to grant the next and any future stages of development money. Normally it isn't a thing, but during the financial crisis of 2008 banks were desperate to shore up their balance sheets so long term thinking, and with it investment, went out of the window. Believe me, I know, as someone who worked in the banking industry at that time. This explains why you see some of the long-since abandoned hotels in the Canaries.
Except..I am convinced that this isn't what happened here..
Criminality in the Canary Islands
Be under no illusion (and most aren't), the Canary Islands have been a haven of underworld criminality for decades. If you believe anything else, you're being naive. In the 80's, it was British gangland boss and notorious timeshare swindler John Palmer, then after his incarceration and ultimately his assassination, the Russian's moved in along with their less than salubrious associates. Then with further EU harmonisation, just about every Eastern European state had criminal representation in the Canaries. They all wanted a piece of the action and with hotels on the rise, developments were soon infiltrated. Gone were the timeshare scams of the 80's, to be replaced with powerful criminal syndicates eager to take over where the banks left off.
We got talking..
For more than twenty years, I have been investigating criminal activity in the Canary Islands. You might be wondering why I'm vague on the detail of this development and how I do know what I do.
Well, to deal with the first part of the question, few were talking about this development until I got chatting to a middle aged Chechnyan chap sat drinking in the same bar as me later in the evening after my visit here. He had been living in Corralejo for a few years in exile. I asked him about the hotel but at first he didn't seem to say much until I bought him a few drinks. He went on to explain that the hotel had been financed by Eastern European dissidents who had left the Baltic states in a hurry. But they themselves fell out and disappeared, presumed dead. Hence this sprawling development stopped. Local sources to some extent validated at least the theory behind this story and instinctively I felt that my Chechen friend knew a lot more than he was prepared to say publicly. I've spoken to a lot of criminals in the Canaries over the years so I know when they're holding back. It's akin to interviewing someone with constipation - they want to go, but they can't. And their faces tell the real truth.
But other than that, few details exist, other than what I found on the day when I visited..
Not quite open, contrary to what the sign on the door says..
Exploring the site..
Access to the site is very easy because the site is so large, it's impossible to cordon off for too long before the urbex'ers break through. As with all previous explorations that I have done, once the cordon gets pulled down, it just gets left.
That said, unusually, the site has a permanent 24x7 security presence and believe me when I say, they were very suspicious of my movements so I had to be very careful where I went and at what time. I waited until they went on patrol before basically following them around at a distance (Spanish security guards are rarely trained in counter surveillance!)
There's plenty to see and do on this site but my usual warnings apply - watch out for girders sticking up through the floor and do take care on stairs which often have no rails and drop off on either side.
The bedrooms were never really decorated or fitted out so they are fairly safe but balconies on the upper levels remain unguarded - and the floors are crumbling so watch out underfoot.
Vandalism is rife but par for the course with any abandoned buildings in the Canary Islands.
I followed security around the site, at a distance, to see the place up close
Conclusion
This building stands as yet another painful reminder of Spain's recent troubled financial and gangland past. The Canary Islands were hit particularly hard during the financial crisis of 2008/09 when lenders simply pulled the financial plug on developments..except..
The mystery that surrounds this development is actually more fascinating than the way in which it was left to rot in the Canarian sunshine. Locals aren't talking. Two local mayors are languishing in jail as a result of local authority corruption relating to planning violations. The whole property stinks of dirty money so much that you can practically smell it.
This is a very interesting one to visit, while you can. It was literally crumbling around my ears on the day I visited in May 2024 and someone is paying for a 24x7 security presence - it won't be the local council that's for sure. Someone wanted to keep me off that site, unlike any other abandoned hotel I've ever visited in the Canaries. You've got to ask yourself why.
For now, it remains an icon of failure. Or criminality. You decide. Eminem can't help (but he's not afraid).
Locating the site:
To find the site, head to the Secrets Bahia Real resort on Av. Corralejo Grandes Playas
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