Dreamland Studios? Is it all over for FV??

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

GMT, I'm going a bit off topic here 🤣 but a quick Q. Is the stratoport up the top between you and the tech park? If it is, do you know what is happening at the bottom of the hill behind the motocross area? Lots of fencing and levelling going on down there.

[GMT]

Hi Tamara, the orange fencing was installed just after they started the works for the stratoport. My guess from what I can see is that the area will go from the road between La Asomada and Los Estancos, down to the tech park and then carrying on in the direction of the turbines and the solar power station, the latter finished not long ago. I think they will be needing a sort of runway too.

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

Diario:

The Environmental Body of Fuerteventura warned that Dreamland would have a "visual impact" of "very high degree".

The theme park would be built on rustic land "with essential and unique natural values," said the Environmental Body, which questioned the insular interest of the project.
The Environmental Body of Fuerteventura (OAF) warned that the theme and commercial park Dreamland, which is intended to be built next to the Natural Park of the Dunes of Corralejo, "would not only involve a transformation of an area of 16 hectares of land, but would entail a visual alteration of the environment. "According to the Environmental Body of Fuerteventura, in charge of preparing the scope document in the environmental assessment process, Dreamland would affect "first the landscape, the soil and the use of the territory".In addition, in an agreement this past May, it highlights that "the strategies of integration, design and mimicry of the buildings" proposed by the promoters, headed by José Antonio Newport, director of Confuer and whose companies have representation in the Chamber of Commerce, "do not justify the need to carry out the project in that location".On February 1 of this year, the president of the Cabildo, Sergio Lloret, issued a ruling in which he requested the Environmental Body to issue its "opinion" on whether the environmental impact study presented by the promoters in 2021 met the "minimum conditions" for its processing or if "it should be complemented".Evaluate not only the theme parkFollowing this request, the Environmental Body of Fuerteventura meets and systematizes the objections to Dreamland. From the outset, he points out that, like the theme and commercial park, "it is developed on a plot that apparently lacks the urban services necessary for its viability."Therefore, he adds, it is necessary to consider "the forecasts contemplated by the project in terms of road access from public roads (link from the highway), water supply, electricity and telecommunications", so that "the environmental impact study should refer to all the action as a whole, including the necessary works to provide services to the plot. ""Fragmentation of territory"The Environmental Body, according to the certification of the agreement to whichDiario de Fuerteventura has had access, "questions the insular interest of the project from the point of view of the benefits it will bring to the population and the physical environment considered, and the environmental suitability of the proposed location, taking into account that it is a common rustic land with essential and unique natural values. ""The fragmentation of the territory must also be considered, by establishing an infrastructure of this type away from urban areas," adds the agreement of the Environmental Body of Fuerteventura, which met on May 11 of this year in extraordinary session to address the Dreamland file."Visual impacts"For the Environmental Body of Fuerteventura, "the project would not only involve a transformation of an area of 16 hectares of land, but would entail a visual alteration of the environment, affecting first the landscape, the soil and the use of the territory". "The strategies of integration, design and mimicry of the buildings do not justify the need to carry out the project in that location," the aforementioned body stressed.In addition, "despite the fact that the environmental document" presented by the promoters maintains that there would be "a minimum visual impact, considered from the landscape point of view, once the different buildings and facilities foreseen in the project have been analyzed, for which different heights are foreseen (up to three and four floors in some cases), it is verified that the visual impact will be of very high degree. "Buildings in space "nothing anthropized"The promoters refuse even to "semi-bury" the buildings and prefer to use "strategies" of "mimicry, camouflage and concealment"The Environmental Body of Fuerteventura also warned that the place where Dreamland is intended to be implemented is a space "nothing anthropized and far from the population centers". Therefore, he pointed out that "the possibility of contemplating that the different facilities and buildings are designed semi-buried" should be analyzed.However, in their reply, the promoters have rejected the option of "half-burying" the Dreamland buildings to reduce the visual impact because the plot of 160,000 square meters, sold by RIU for 80,000 euros, has "a basaltic layer" at "shallow depth". Faced with what the Environmental Body proposes, the promoters maintain that they prefer to use "strategies" of "mimicry, camouflage and concealment.""Emptying the land"Another aspect that is related to the visual impact is the intended "use of stones from the planned place" by the promoters "for the mimicry and integration of the project into the landscape". On the part of the Environmental Body of Fuerteventura "it is valued in a negative and unfeasible sense, both for the temperature and humidity conditions of the place, and for the effect of emptying the land".

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

Diario:

The promoters of Dreamland expect to enter up to 18 million a year of tourists but only three million from the cinema.


"It is expected that one in four tourists visiting the island of Fuerteventura will come to the park," says the viability plan, with tickets at 50 euros.
The promoters of Dreamland have baptized their project as a "city of cinema", focused on the recording and post-production of films. However, the numbers of the economic feasibility study show another objective: they expect to enter up to 18 million euros a year from tourists and residents who visit the theme park, six times more than by the film studios.In fact, in the tenth year of operation of Dreamland, when the promoters are confident that the business has reached the best levels, of the 23.4 million global revenues expected, of every 100 euros invoiced, 78 euros would come from visitors to the theme park, mainly tourists.The project includes the urbanization and construction of 160,000 square meters of rustic land, next to the Natural Park of the Dunes of Corralejo and overlooking this natural space and the Islet of Lobos. The objective of the promoters is that "one in four tourists who visit the island of Fuerteventura goes to the park" themed. Before COVID, the island was visited by more than two million tourists a year, with the peak of 2017 in which the 2.4 million visitors were touched.The Dreamland theme park, according to the feasibility study presented by José Antonio Newport's company, would be related to "virtual reality" and would have an area of 10,500 square meters, divided into "three buildings of several floors" high.The promoters' forecasts are that 90 percent of the theme park's visitors will be "tourists, both national and international," while the remaining 10 percent will be residents of the Islands. One of the reasons for the location, at the foot of the Dunes of Corralejo, is also to attract tourists and residents of the neighboring island of Lanzarote.The theme park would have, in principle, 14 rooms, "with seven experiences each", and another room with "three wind tunnels". Due to the "average duration of the experiences" of virtual reality and "the opening hours" of the park, it is estimated that Dreamland would have the capacity to welcome 4,010 visitors each day. The annual capacity would amount to more than 1.4 million visitors.The economic viability analysis notes that, as visitors are "primarily expected" to be tourists, "two types of fees are created, one for residents and one for non-residents." The latter would pay 50 euros per person, while residents would be charged 37.50 euros. However, promoters have no limitation to set the price of tickets."On the other hand, Dreamland aims to facilitate the arrival of visitors to the park, so [it] plans to create a transport service from the main tourist areas of the Island, providing a daily frequency of four to six trips," highlights the economic feasibility study.As for the operating income of the theme park, which would be launched during the fourth year of the execution of works, in the first year of full operation they foresee revenues of 10.4 million euros, which the following year would amount to 13 million euros and, gradually, up to 18.3 million in the tenth year. In that year, the expected benefits of the theme park would total almost 4.5 million euros."According to the expected estimates, the activity developed by the virtual reality theme park is expected to be profitable from the first year of the start of the activity, after the construction and assembly works of the facilities, allowing to amortize the investment made in a short period of time," says the feasibility study.StudiesThe economic volume that film studios would generate, the activity that has been identified as the raison d'être of Dreamland, are instead much lower than the theme park for tourists. Thus, its start-up is expected after two years of works. In the first full year of operation they would generate slight losses. Then the profits would move between 15,365 euros in the eighth year, 163,309 euros in the following year and a maximum that does not reach one million euros in the tenth year of operation.

According to the feasibility study, revenues would fluctuate between 1.2 million in the third year to 3.1 million in the tenth year, with income figures usually between two and three million euros.

Despite these modest business figures of the film studios, Newport has demanded that the declaration of insular interest by the Cabildo be reactivated with the justification that "due to the characteristics of the project, it is strategic for the island of Fuerteventura" and that, "from the economic point of view", it would generate "a non-existent film industrial sector, not just recording as before."
Academy

The other leg of Dreamland is that of the formation. The main promoter of the project is, in turn, president of the Canarian Confederation of Training Companies and, in an interview a year ago forDiario de Avisos, in which he asked for the expansion of public funds from the Government of the Canary Islands for courses for the unemployed, he said that "training is one of the keys to emerging strengthened from this crisis".
In the final stretch of execution of Dreamland (in month 70) the implementation of a "training academy" in "the entire spectrum of existing audiovisual disciplines" is contemplated, in a building of 5,000 square meters. The feasibility study foresees revenues, in the tenth year, of two million euros, with an annual profit of one million euros.
Commerce

The complex also includes the construction of 10,000 square meters of "facilities that will complement the range of services". "With respect to these facilities, it is expected to obtain a monthly fee, for the transfer of exploitation of both the commercial area and the restoration area," says the feasibility study. However, the figure pointed out of that canon, just 15,000 euros, is far from the amounts paid, for example, in rents of commercial and restaurant premises.

link to article for pics and charts

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

Diario:

RIU sold the land for the theme park next to the Dunes for 80,000 euros

The purchase of the 160,000 square meters of rustic land that are intended to be urbanized and built if the Cabildo gives its approval represents just 0.10% of the announced investment.

The company Geafond number two Fuerteventura SA, controlled by the hotel chain RIU, sold for just 80,000 euros the land where it is intended to locate, on rustic land, the theme and commercial park Dreamland, next to the Natural Park of the Dunes of Corralejo.

The sale was made in a notary of Corralejo on December 10, 2020, a few weeks before the then president of the Cabildo de Fuerteventura, Blas Acosta, tried unsuccessfully to declare the island interest of the theme park, which was left on the table in the plenary session of the insular Corporation.
Águeda Borges, representing the RIU company, and José Antonio Newport, administrator of the company Dreamland Studios SA, participated directly in the real estate transaction.
The company controlled by RIU owned, among others, a bag of land of more than 1.2 million square meters in the area, between the current Corralejo motorway and the Dunes Natural Park.
From that land, a part was segregated, "from the farm known as 'Merced de Miguel Aljibes', specifically from the third portion, starting from the west, of the three that cross to the Dehesa de Guariame".
The surface area of the plot segregated and sold by RIU to the Newport company is 160,001 square meters. The sale price was set at just 80,000.5 euros, at 50 cents per square meter.
In the documentation presented by the businessman for the Cabildo to declare the theme and commercial park of insular interest, and allow the urbanization and construction of rustic land about 400 meters away from the natural space of the Dunes, as has been recognized during the processing of the project, it is maintained that the investment would exceed 76.8 million euros.
Of all this economic amount, the acquisition of the land necessary to develop the Dreamland project, linked to the audiovisual world, barely represents 0.10 percent of the announced investment. The check with the 80,000.5 euros, formalized through Cajamar, was delivered the same day of signing at a notary dated December 4, 2020.
RIU Conditions

In the sale agreement, to whichDiario de Fuerteventura has had access, it is detailed that both parties agreed on two resolutory conditions of the operation. The first is that the Newport company undertook to submit to the Cabildo the application to obtain the declaration of insular interest within a maximum period of six months. Otherwise, RIU reserved the possibility of "terminating the contract".

The other condition was the requirement that no "accommodation facilities" be run within the theme park. "If the seller is a company of a hotel group (RIU Hotels and Resorts) with establishments in the area, it is completely prohibited and it is an essential and resolutory condition of this sale, whatever the state in which the project is located, that constructions of any kind intended for accommodation purposes are not executed on the land, in any residential or tourist modality".

"In the event of works intended for residential or tourist accommodation purposes, the selling party", that is, RIU, "may demand compensation for any damages that may arise" from the Newport company, the contract adds.

[Will]

Attracting film crews are going to require

Incentives. AKA handouts.

Infrastructure. That means all the support industries. If your budget is big enough you can fly in everything and everyone but the number of really big budget films isn't that big.

[windermeregolfer]

Diario:

The promoters of Dreamland expect to enter up to 18 million a year of tourists but only three million from the cinema.


"It is expected that one in four tourists visiting the island of Fuerteventura will come to the park," says the viability plan, with tickets at 50 euros.

Firstly I take it that the 18million is revenue in €'s 

If so that 360,000 visitors at 50€ a head. How do these sums add up when the airport at its peak in 2018 handled 6.1million passengers (That is both arrivals and departures) including all inter island and mainland Spain passengers with a large proportion of the remaining tourist passengers going to the south of the island resorts of Costa Calma and Morro Jable.  

Do tourists come to Fuerteventura to go to a Movie Theme Park? Plus are the tourists staying in the south of the island going to travel to a Theme Park in the North of the island with at least an hours drive each way?

Personally I very much doubt it.

I can understand the Rui hotel stance re onsite accommodation but why do they own that land?  Add into the equation the uncertainty around these 2 hotels sorry this does not make sense at all.

[Johnrgby]

looking at it, and it is noy my area of expertise, it is a nonstarter, the projected figures are farcical to say the least, 25% of the visitors to The Island will visit  a family of for €200, not a cat in heels chance, call me a sceptic, but it is probably an idea that will/might attract funds from the EU, and when it fails those funds will have disappeared.

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

Radio Sintonia:

Dreamland Fuerteventura: A Dream or a Nightmare.

In a statement sent to Radio Sintonía from the Associations: El Efequén, SOS Malpey, Agonane Ben Magec – Ecologists in Action, SOS Fuerteventura, Colectivo Guanil, Plataforma Ciudadana Salvar El Cotillo, Cotillo Joven, Coordinadora Montaña de Tindaya, Asamblea Popular de Fuerteventura, Plataforma por un Nuevo Modelo Energética en Fuerteventura , as non-profit social organizations that contemplate among their purposes the protection of the landscape, the territory, the conservation and dissemination of the heritage, historical and cultural values of Fuerteventura, knowing that theDREAMLAND Projectwill be carried out in full next Monday, November 28

WE MANIFEST

FIRST: In January 2021 we met theDREAMLAND Project, of which little or nothing was known until then, located on a rustic plotclose to the ENP Dunas de Corralejo Natural Parkthat was taken to the Plenary of the Cabildo de Fuerteventura on January 29, remaining on the table andwithout approvingthedeclarationofInsular Interest requested for it.

Today, almost two years later, the Cabildo returns to full the same Project, with minimal modifications, without having raised the necessary adjustments or reasonable alternatives to its location. It seems that the Insular Government body does not go into the substance of the matter, not about the content, nor does it assess as it should, through its reports and advice, the characteristics of the project, nor does it seem to have anything to say about the DEVELOPMENT AND MANAGEMENT MODEL THAT THE ISLAND OF FUERTEVENTURA needs and the impact on the territory of the proposal. They do not comment on this.

SECOND: That we are in favor of developing those projects that involve a diversification of the economic model and alternative development to the one that has prevailed in recent decades on the island of Fuerteventura, as long as they really diversify the offer and respond to the principles of proportionality, sustainability and respect for the physical and natural environment.

In that sense, we cannot be in favor of a project like the one presented to us: a tourist megaproject, a theme park, disguised as a film school, which perpetuates an economic model and occupation of the territory not only outdated, but totally removed from the current reality.

THIRD: That the location continues to be proposed for the "DREAMLAND" Project, is the worst that could be considered. A large plot of 160,000 m2of virgin malpais, common rustic land, not buildable, without access from the general road, lacking all kinds of infrastructure and services and close to the ENP Natural Park Dunes of Corralejo, ZEC and SPA area, near the courtship area of the Hubara, protected species, symbol of Fuerteventura in serious danger of extinction, and overnight of the guirre, it is inadmissible for the execution of a project of this magnitude and with buildings of special characteristics, which suppose a great impact on the territory, and an attack on the natural environment, to its rustic and landscape values.

FOURTH: That the feasibility studies in which the Project is protected prioritize economic profitability over the conservation and protection of the environment, a "profitability" that, in light of other Megaprojects executed in the Canary Islands, do not revert to its inhabitants, but only report business benefits to large companies, in exchange for low-skilled jobs and in conditions of instability and precariousness for the local population.

FIFTH: That in Fuerteventura we do not need the largest film studios in Europe, nor the largest water tank in Europe, nor a cinematographic city dedicated leisure with innovative experiences of total immersion of virtual reality. We need Film Studios with Training School, as demanded by the sector, which complement our magnificent and unique natural settings and that, together with the tax benefits established in this community, allow us to diversify our industrial and labor offer, without destroying our territory

SIXTH: That we do not consider duly justified the INSULAR INTEREST, of the Dreamland project, as it is proposed, since it does not respond to an unexpected or urgent need; nor is it a strategic project, and even less that it should be located in the proposed area, and other alternatives of less impact for its location must be valued, as well as the necessary resizing of it.

SÉPTIMO: that, on the contrary, those infrastructures and public services that are aimed at improving the quality of life of people residing in Fuerteventura, such as the water supply network, purification and discharges of untreated water, public transport, health services, socio-health, social, educational, etc., and that seem not to have the consideration of urgent and strategic by the decision-making bodies of the Public Administrations.

THE SIGNATORY ASSOCIATIONS propose a SUSTAINABLE ISLAND, with a balanced development model that discards urban megaprojects and irreversible actions based on business, oil and tourist figures.

It is time for our institutions not to be mere transmitters of private interests and to incorporate into their proposals and interventions considerations that, in accordance with the current situation of change, are respectful of the natural environment, biodiversity, our history and our cultural identity.
For all these reasons, we EXPRESS OURSELVES AGAINST THE APPROVAL OF THE Project of Insular Interest DREAMLAND ESTUDIOS, S.A., as it is conceived and in the proposed location

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

Noticias:

Around 30 people at the demonstration against the development of the island.

The audiovisual project Dreamland Estudios "is supported by the majority of the citizens of Fuerteventura"

The call for the demonstration held today in the area of Los Risquetes to protest against the creation of an audiovisual HUB on the island of Fuerteventura, next to the highway to Corralejo, "has been tarnished by the scarce convening power of the organizers".

Around 30 people, including public officials of the Canary Coalition and foreigners residing in La Oliva, protested in this "hangout" against what they consider bad for the island of Fuerteventura and for the municipality of La Oliva.

"The majorera society supports almost entirely the progress of the island, and the possibility of having infrastructures that promote the digital industry, the audiovisual world and a different future in socioeconomic and cultural employment, becoming a benchmark for all of Europe based on the knowledge economy or orange economy," says the most prestigious producer in the Canary Islands, Sebastian Álvarez.

The promoters claim that there is a high degree of manipulation in all the information that is filtered from "hidden interests that give the impression that they want the project to end up on another island and with other surnames."

The call in the area of the Risquetes this Saturday morning "has not gone as the environmental groups intended perhaps because the majorera society mostly supports progress and have realized the deception and manipulation of groups that pretend that society is divided into officials with their salaries guaranteed and waiters ", explains one of the promoters.