REAL MALLORCA´S METROPOLIS PLAN

By Humphrey Carter THIS is how Real Mallorca Football club envisages the stadium complex will look in the future. Yesterday the club, which is enjoying a turn around of fortunes in the league, unveiled the project it intends to submit to Palma City Council for planning permission. It is not the first ambitious project to the stadium site the chairman Vicente Grande has unveiled over the past six months. The first idea was to construct a huge sky-scraper but Palma city council was not too impressed with the idea. However, the new project, which has been designed by a Madrid Lamela firm of leading architects, involves three towers varying in height from 35 storeys to 25 and the shorter of just 15. Real Mallorca spokesperson Hector Romero said yesterday that the project will re-develop the Son Moix into “intelligent buildings” referring to the fact that 90 percent of the new stadium seating will be covered and the entire roof will be laid with solar panelling which should generate enough power for the stadium complex and much more. The towers will include apartments, office space, cinemas, shopping, possible restaurants and bars as well as a viewing gallery for tourists. The stadium itself will have the athletics track removed and have seating for 40.500 spectators and there will be enough parking for 3.500 vehicles, or more, Ramon said yesterday. The club is expected to submit the plans and project to the Mayor of Palma Catalina Cirer, an ardent Real Mallorca fan, before the end of the week. Grande hopes that he will get the green light to develop a stadium complex for the future of the city's football club and population. A highly successful businessman and constructor one of Grande's principal aims, apart from making sure that Real Mallorca continues to play top flight football in Spain, is to increase the club's revenue and he believes the answer is to transform Son Moix into a huge sporting, business, commercial and entertainment complex. The stadium was originally built for the University Student Games in 1999 and belongs to the city council but has been loaned out to the club for 50 years, a period which can be extended.