Have Been Closed Down

They've started work on renovating hotels already, and the season isn't yet officially over. There was the sound of concrete debris cascading down a chute coming from the Iberostar Playa de Muro hotel yesterday morning. Iberostar gut at least one hotel every winter. At least they seem to have money in reserve, as one might expect of one of Mallorca's most successful businesses; one might not be so confident that this is the case with all hotels.

The activity on the beach side of the carretera that passes through Playa de Muro contrasts markedly with the deadness opposite. Together with the last tourists of the season, I ambled along the stretch of side road from the municipal building to the Banca March roundabout in front of the Esperanza complex. A grey morning made it seem even more miserable an area than usual. One wonders what those tourists made of this "avenue". I doubt that they counted, but I did. Twenty-five "locals" closed, some with for-sale signs, all just appearing abandoned. Only the presence of Boulevard's shiny beast of a building, some multi-locals for rent a car and a handful of other places give the impression that there is more open than closed. Even a couple that are open - the grim-looking, plastic-wrapped George and the Dragon and an amusement arcade - seem only to be grudgingly so. There is litter and the remnants of leaves and bits of tree brought down by the rains and winds lying on the arcade's court. It's as if they've given up and been given up on.

It's not as though this is a recent development of anti-commerce; some of these places have been closed for years. Two of the restaurants, Mediterrani and Shooters, have gone down the pan over the past 24 months. Current-day economics play a part, but this strip is testimony to far more than recession and lower tourist spend. It is the folly of over-supply, and over-supply of unlovely units, the all-inclusive and, most likely, an unwillingness of owners to accept what might pass for sensible sale prices or rents. Playa de Muro is an attractive place, so long as you keep your eyes closed to the blots on the landscape as you hurry past along the carretera on the way to Alcúdia or to Can Picafort and beyond. No one stops in Playa de Muro because there's little to stop for, except the beach.

Muro town hall, if it had any sense or any money, would expropriate these unwanted locals; no one else is surely insane enough to take one on. Even if they just put some green areas in their place, it would certainly be an improvement. Perhaps the council could have a word with the government which is planning on creating cheap apartments at some 75,000 euros a pop. If they wanted to, they could change the usage permission for the land at the stroke of a pen. The more likely scenario is that nothing will happen, and the units will remain empty. It is, to be honest, a disgrace of misused and unused real estate. Of course, if they did opt for residential buildings, they wouldn't go for some quasi-social housing; the land would be considered too valuable, so valuable that nobody wants to open up any of the units. Chances are that a developer would muscle in and put up some different speculative constructions that would also remain unsold or unused. For all the criticism that Boulevard attracts, in Puerto Pollensa at any rate, don't let's overlook the fact that they have made an effort; without their building, this strip would be more of a disaster of neglect than it is.

One is left to conclude that, among the rather erratic planning that has occurred in Mallorca's resorts, it doesn't get much stranger than the micro-Muro strip. It's time for something decisive to happen, but it almost certainly won't.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Temptations (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2B3x4vA-ZM). The tree thing was The Beach Boys from "Surf's Up". Today's title - line from what some say is the greatest pop song ever.

(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)