Reaching for the sky: all you need to know about Benidorm’s Intempo building

Gazing from my 31st-floor balcony, a friend from the UK, on his first visit to Benidorm, exclaimed “geez, what the hell is that monstrosity?” He was staring at Europe’s tallest residential building standing 198 meters high close to the resort’s pristine Poniente beach.

When I arrived in Spain in 2010, the Intempo building was under construction and I wondered when I would be completed.

Then, In July 2011, when the building had reached the 46th floor I was on my balcony when I heard a terrible crash and saw clouds of dust rising skywards from the base of the Intempo.

A freight elevator had collapsed with 13 workers inside and ambulances were unable to access the site because no vehicle entrance had been built in order to save money. Several workers were seriously injured.

Construction was immediately halted, and for what seemed like years I saw no further activity at the site. But work resumed in earnest just before the Covid pandemic, which further delayed building work.

However, in July of last year Spain’s leading newspaper, El País, reported that the 47-storey-high building, with 256 apartments, was set to receive its first occupants.

The M-shaped building, according to this report, was to commemorate the victims of Madrid’s March 11, 2004, terrorist attacks that killed 193 people and injured around 2,000.

Interesting facts

• A cone joins both parts of the tower from the floor 38th to the 44th.
• The building’s design was officially presented on the 19th of January 2006.
• It surpassed Gran Hotel Bali as the city’s tallest building.
• The building was erected on a lot of 12,950 square metres.
• The towers resembles two giant 1 numerals with a cone joining them at the top floors.
• First proposed to have 75 floors.
• The two sides are separated by a 20 metre gap.
• The works on the tower were halted several times. First due to the 2008 financial crisis and again in 2014; months before completion the investor went bankrupt.

The El País report, which describes Benidorm as “the New York of the Mediterranean is also a city that never sleeps” has more interesting details about the project.

The Intempo has 13,000 square meters of common areas, including an 800-square-meter pool on the ground floor. It takes around seven minutes to walk the 200 meters to the nearby Poniente beach from the building. On the 46th floor, there is another pool, and from the sun loungers you can enjoy a spectacular bird’s-eye view of the city.

The 47th floor is the highest point, and is home to common areas. There will be a cocktail bar up there, along with four jacuzzis. The building managers estimate that around 800 people will live in the building in the high season … The most exclusive apartments are located on the 45th floor. The two residences there boast 300 square meters of space, and have been sold for more than €2 million.

El País has a stunning gallery of photos which you can see here.

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