Way forward opened for new Rafa Nadal tennis club in Malaga

Friday, December 13, 2024, 2:31 PM

After Spanish tennis sensation Rafa Nadal retired from professional football in Malaga on November 19, the way is clear for the city to have a tennis club with his trademarked name on it.

It is a sports and leisure center promoted by the Marbella developer Sierra Blanca, together with the tennis player and his family, which has set its sights on the current facilities of the Inacua racket centre, next to the athletics stadium, in order to expand and transform. transform them into an ambitious project dedicated to tennis.

As SUR has previously reported, the plan to take over the racket center and convert it into a Nadal brand tennis club was complicated, as these sports facilities are owned by Serveo, Ferrovial's services company, which was awarded the prize ten years ago . contract for the construction and operation of the tennis and paddle tennis center for 20 years, on land owned by the Town Hall.

Therefore, the company, whose shares were sold by Ferrovial to the Portobello Fund, had ten years ahead of it, and the only way out to realize the Sierra Blanca and Nadal project is for Serveo's concession to somehow way is ended. so that the door would be open for a new tender to cede this land to a company that would renovate and operate this sports facility in the western part of the city of Malaga.

Agreement reached

Now, as SUR has learned, following an agreement between Sierra Blanca and Serveo, everything is ready for this company to give up the operation of the center for the next ten years of the concession. To reach this point, Sierra Blanca and the Nadal family have presented to the planning department the proposal with which they want to transform and expand the current racket center into a first-class club. This project has already received a positive report from the municipality's sports department, which endorses its interest in the city.

The agreed plan between all parties to ensure the success of this operation is for the city planning to inform the current concessionaire of the support of the Sports Department for the proposal of Sierra Blanca and the Nadals. Serveo will formally resign in order to continue operating the facilities on the land granted to him by the City Council, in accordance with the city planning. In addition, the Marbella-based developer has agreed a compensation package with Serveo for the withdrawal.

This opens the door for the municipality to issue a new tender for the transfer of this land of which Sierra Blanca wants to be the winner with an intervention designed with the ambition to become one of the most important sports centers at local and regional level level to develop.

An area destined to undergo a remarkable transformation

This area on the west side of the city of Malaga will undergo a major transformation in the coming years with the campus planned here by the Alfonso X El Sabio University and the various housing projects already on land and to be developed. such as Torre del Ro, La Trmica or El Pato, in what is already known as the 'golden mile' of Malaga's coastline.

The current racket center has 19 padel and seven tennis courts, two of which are clay courts and have been unused and semi-abandoned almost since their inauguration due to their costly maintenance. The construction of a central tennis court with a capacity of between 3,000 and 4,000 spectators, as requested in the tender conditions established in 2014, has yet to be completed. The absence of this court has meant that the main matches hosted by the center to date have had to be held using temporary stands placed around some of the existing courts.

The conversion of the complex into a 'franchise' of the Rafa Nadal academy could facilitate the organization of high-level tournaments. However, the project's initiators have emphasized that it is a tennis club and not an academy like the one in Rafa Nadal's hometown of Manacor. It has approximately 80,000 square meters, 500 employees and a residence for young tennis players with 95 rooms, where top tennis players also regularly train.