Never built

2019

Toni Mayor’s 60-floor hotel tower

Planned

around 204 m · 60 floors

Location

Poniente

Status

never started

In December 2019 the hotelier Toni Mayor unveiled plans for a hotel with 60 floors and 450 rooms in Poniente, on a plot next to Intempo. At around 204 m, according to Alicante Plaza, it would have become the town’s tallest building. The design came from the Benidorm practice Interproyectos. The investment was estimated at around €50 million.

The ground floor was to consist almost entirely of lifts. Reception was planned at around 45 m, the first room at around 65 m. Right at the top there were to be three suites, one per floor. Mayor gave no dates. When TM announced its 230 m tower in 2025, the hotel project was still not regarded as an imminent investment.

Intempo →TM Tower →

Sources: Alicante Plaza, 2019 · Alicante Plaza, 2025

2017–2018

Kryptonite Tower

Planned

165 m · 50 floors

Location

Poniente

Status

never started

The practice DNA Barcelona Architects designed a glass residential tower with 50 floors, 165 m tall, with 102 apartments. Plans included a cinema, spa, gym, pool, children’s area and tennis court, with another pool and two bars on intermediate floors. The investment was put at €18 million.

There was no developer. Before the pandemic, the practice offered the design to the owner of a plot in Poniente, near Sunset Waves. According to Alicante Plaza, the tower was still on paper in 2021. One architecture platform, however, gives Calpe as the location.

Sunset Waves →

Sources: Alicante Plaza, 2021 · Architect Magazine, 2018 · World Architecture

from 2009

Torre Mediterráneo at the casino

Planned

37 floors · 247 rooms

Location

Rincón de Loix

Status

not started

A hotel tower was to be built next to the Casino Mediterráneo in the Rincón de Loix. The first idea dates from around 2009. According to esturismo.eu, a curved glass tower with 38 floors and 135 m was planned, designed by Luis Rodrigo Benito. Only the casino and the car park were built, opening in 2014.

The developer Convalesa’s licence allowed a hotel with 232 rooms on 35 floors. In 2019 the town council approved a change to 37 floors and 247 rooms. In return, Convalesa was to pay €140,568.77 and cede 87.02 m² of land. The building permit was still outstanding at the time. There has been no news since.

Sources: Alicante Plaza, 2019 · Alicante Plaza, 2019 · esturismo.eu

2005 · 2020–2023

The site of the old Edificio Las Terrazas

Planned

30–32 floors · 87 apartments

Location

Levante, seafront

Status

abandoned 2023

On the Playa de Levante, between Avenida del Mediterráneo, Avenida Europa and Avenida de Madrid, the low-rise Edificio Las Terrazas stood from 1964. The last of it came down in 2014. As early as 2005, a photomontage showed a replacement tower with 33 floors. Since then the site has served as a car park. The agreement with the town ran until November 2019 and was extended in 2020.

In 2021 the town accepted for processing a scheme by a Grupo Urbana company for a tower with 30 floors; later 32 floors and 87 apartments were planned. In both 2022 and 2023 a majority of the owners withdrew their consent. The municipal architect found that the permitted floor area had been exceeded. In May 2023 the procedure was closed.

Sources: Alicante Plaza, 2021 · Alicante Plaza, 2023 · Alicante Plaza, 2020

around 2009

The third tower of the Torres d'Oboe

Planned

third tower, height unknown

Location

Calle Kennedy

Status

not built

The Torres d'Oboe twin towers on Calle Kennedy each have 31 floors and were completed in 2009. According to esturismo.eu, the project originally included a third tower. The CTBUH lists the complex with only two towers of 114 m each. The height, timing and reasons for dropping the third tower are not documented.

Torre d'Oboe →

Sources: esturismo.eu · CTBUH Skyscraper Center

year unknown

‘H10 Benidorm’

Planned

130.3 m · 41 floors

Location

Poniente

Status

no construction known

According to the CTBUH entry, a hotel tower with 41 floors, 130.3 m tall and with 450 rooms was planned on Avenida de Uruguay in Poniente, designed by the Barcelona practice ON-A. The entry gives no year and contradicts itself on the status. There are no press reports about the tower. The H10 chain later opened an eight-floor hotel in Poniente on a different site.

Sources: CTBUH Skyscraper Center · Alicante Plaza, 2018

2023–2025

TM’s wind-powered tower

Planned

30 floors · approx. 100 apartments

Location

Poniente

Status

study, not started

On the last commercial plot of TM’s development in Poniente, a hotel was planned first, but it never came about. In 2023 the town council instead approved a plan for a residential building with 30 floors and around 100 apartments on Avenida de Guatemala. It is to generate its own electricity, with two types of wind turbine and solar panels on the roof and on one façade.

From 2021, anemometers measured the wind at ground level and on the roofs of Sunset Cliffs and Intempo. In July 2025 TM and the Universidad de Alicante declared the concept feasible. The calculations were based on turbines from the manufacturer Enair. The cost of the prototype was estimated at around €20 million. No start of construction has been set.

Sunset Cliffs →Intempo →

Sources: Ayuntamiento de Benidorm, 2025 · Alicante Plaza, 2025 · Murcia Today, 2023

2021–2022

Cohousing for older people

Planned

30 floors

Location

Poniente

Status

not started

On a plot between the roundabout and Sunset Waves, TM planned a 30-floor tower for older people. Each resident was to have their own unit with a sea view, plus a cafeteria on the 19th floor and a spa on the 21st. The plan went on public display and passed the environmental assessment. In 2023 there was a project, but no final approval. In 2025 it was said that such a project had once been planned there.

Sunset Waves →

Sources: Alicante Plaza, 2022 · Alicante Plaza, 2023 · Alicante Plaza, 2025

year unknown

The tower with rotating floors

Planned

top 20 floors rotating

Location

nightclub district

Status

never built

According to Valencia Plaza, the architect Roberto Pérez-Guerras, known for Neguri Gane and as co-architect of Intempo, designed a tower whose top 20 floors were meant to rotate. That way the owners could have turned their apartments to face the sea. The article gives only the nightclub district as the location. The tower was never built. The year and the client are not recorded.

Sources: Valencia Plaza

2025 · proceedings since 2005

Study for the Gemelos 28 site

Planned

up to 58 residential floors

Location

Punta Llisera

Demolition

planned from October 2029

Status

study only

The Gemelos 28 twin towers at Punta Llisera have been built and are lived in, but they are due to be demolished. The building licence dates from 6 June 1988, seven weeks before Spain’s Coastal Law came into force. Construction only went ahead after the regional government gave its approval on 29 April 2005. That same year the state took legal action against it. Following a ruling by the regional high court in 2008, the Supreme Court found in the state’s favour on 23 July 2012: the towers stand four to six metres inside the coastal protection zone, where no new residential buildings are allowed.

Enforcement was sought by a neighbour in the building behind and a holiday-letting company, whose views the towers had blocked. In 2017 the regional high court ruled that only demolition could implement the judgment; in November 2018 the Supreme Court rejected the last appeals. Mediation failed in 2019. The regional government set aside €70.8 million to compensate the buyers, and a court commission fixed October 2029 as the start of demolition. In August 2026 the regional government proposed a new promenade under which the towers would no longer stand in the protection zone; this requires the approval of the ministry in Madrid.

In case of demolition, the town hall’s architecture department worked out in 2025, at the request of the coastal authority, what could be newly built on the site: a slender single tower with up to 58 residential floors, just outside the protection zone. The study is not a building project. Nothing has been applied for or approved.

Gemelos 28 →

Sources: Alicante Plaza, 2025 · Supreme Court ruling, 2012 (PDF) · Alicante Plaza – demolition in 2029 · Alicante Plaza – promenade, Aug. 2026

1990–2012

Armanello: a whole high-rise district

Planned

16–20 towers · 35 floors or more

Location

Rincón de Loix

Ruling

TSJCV 2012: to be re-awarded

Status

never started

The 1990 Plan General designated the Armanello area near the Rincón de Loix, next to the Mercadillo and the old N-332, as future building land. According to the newspaper Información, 16 to 20 towers of at least 35 floors and 3,800 apartments were planned on 667,000 m², served by a wide boulevard. A 2012 dissertation that cites these figures speaks of 25 towers.

The partial development plan was first approved on 16 June 2000; the development contract had been awarded to the builder Enrique Ortiz. More than ten years of litigation and standstill followed. In early April 2012 Información reported the ruling of the High Court of the Valencian Region (TSJCV): it declared the sector void and obliged the town to award the partial plan again from scratch. The report does not say who had brought the case.

An appeal to the Supreme Court was still possible. According to the town hall, however, the town did not consider it the best course given the economic crisis. By then not a single tower had been built. In 2018 the owners submitted a new design for the same land, now known as Ensanche Levante, with a minimum height of 20 floors and a large park.

Sources: Mª Nieves Higueras López, Proyecto Fin de Grado, 2012 · Información, 5 April 2012 · Alicante Plaza, 2018

1988–2002 · built differently

Gran Hotel Bali: 210 m planned

Planned

210 m

Built

186 m (roof)

Location

La Cala

Status

opened 2002

According to Spanish Wikipedia, the partial development plan for the Gran Hotel Bali provided for 210 m. The tower was built to 186 m at the roof. Whether the 210 m referred to the roof or the tip remains unclear. Why it ended up lower is not documented.

Construction took almost 14 years, from the start of work in June 1988 to the opening in May 2002. Costs rose from just under 2,000 million pesetas, around €12 million, to around €90 million. The hotel was designed by Antonio Escario; the structure is by Florentino Regalado.

Gran Hotel Bali →

Sources: Wikipedia ES (Hispanopedia)

2009–2021 · built differently

Intempo: planned for 2009, finished in 2021

Planned

completion 2009

Built

completed 2021

Location

Poniente

Standstill

from 2014 at around 94%

Intempo was meant to be finished in 2009, later 2011. In 2009 the structural contractor Estructuras Aliben went bust, followed in November 2014 by the developer Olga Urbana. From 2014 the shell stood idle at around 94% completion. Depending on the source, the tower is between 187 m and 204.5 m tall.

In 2017 SVP Global bought the loan, and in 2018 the building passed into its ownership. The Madrid practice Rafael Robleado redesigned the apartments, and Dragados completed construction from late 2019. Instead of the split into sea-view and mountain-view apartments, every apartment now has both views. Intempo was completed in July 2021.

Intempo →

Sources: El Español, 2021 · Wikipedia EN

1958 · historical

The first design for the Hotel Delfín

Planned

approx. 150 double rooms, over 14 m

Location

Poniente

Status

never built

On 3 April 1958 a top-category hotel with around 150 double rooms and a curved sea-facing façade was approved in Poniente. It had been designed by the Madrid architect José Mª Garma Zubizarreta. It was not a skyscraper in today’s sense, but it exceeded the height limit of 14 m then in force. The cost was estimated at 16,977,522.28 pesetas.

This design was never built. In 1961 a lower plan followed, with a ground floor, three storeys and 102 rooms, opening in 1963. After its demolition in 2025, the Gran Delfín, 158 m tall with 44 floors, is now going up on the site.

Gran Delfín →

Sources: Histobenidorm, 2015