Isla's Biggest Eyesore

This is a post I have been working on for a very long time now. Months and months in fact. I wanted to show this monstrosity from start to finish. Problem is, I hate this building, I hate that it has been allowed to even be built here, I hate how it looks, I hate what they are doing to the beach and I hate what it represents.

I think it's pretty much done now. Or at least far enough along to really get a good sense of it. Big trucks have been parked across the street from it recently delivering mattresses and other furnishings. Plus I am sick to death of taking pictures of it. What you see here has been culled from hundreds of pictures I have taken.

I shouldn't even give this place the time of day on my blog. But it is now an integral part of the island so I feel I should mention something about it. Don't expect it to be nice though.

I'm going to start with pictures of Aluxes Condos (no relation to the coffee shop!) once it was high enough to start seeing what they were doing. This place is huge, to say the least. It sits on the northwest corner of the island, facing the mainland. It is located right across the street from Jax and next to the old cemetery. (the new cemetery is just down the road from me) You can't miss it.






Like all building endeavors in Mexico, all the safety measures for workers were taken. Yeah, right. Look at them walking on the girders.




And using really secure scaffolding.

Here's the view a few months ago taken from the car ferry.

One more rough construction picture.

What you have seen so far is the front of the building. If you take a few steps down the dirt road next to it, the one that goes to Playa Sol, you can get a look at the back side. As you can see, somebody ignored the no higher than 3 stories rule for building on the island.

The front side appears to have lobbies and entrances all along it.

I just can't express how this building makes me sick. It is just so not isla. Look how it dwarfs the cemetery.

When I was doing the article for Hotel Las Palmas, I was able to get this shot from their roof. Without this building, or if it were within the 3 story limit, one would have had a view of the ocean and the sunset. Pity.

But they didn't stop with just putting up this monstrosity of a building. Oh, no. They have now purchased a beach concession right across the street from them and are putting up a private beach area for the future residents of this condo complex.

The fence is just to keep people out during construction. I'm sure they will have security people to keep you out later.

Here you can see how close to the water they get. They can't use all the space to the water and keep people from using the beach. But they can leave only just a sliver of beach for the public to use.

Normally the hotels who purchase beach concessions put up wooden palapa buildings. Not good enough for these people. They are actually putting up permanent, cement block buildings. One can only imagine what they will be. Bathrooms? Beach bar?

They do have some palapas lying around that they will erect eventually. These will provide shade to the privileged.

I sincerely hope that nobody buys into this project, that the investors lose tons of money and that the next Cat 5 hurricane knocks it all down. And don't tell me about how many jobs this project has and will create. Not interested. There are many more eco-friendly projects that they could have done to create jobs.

End of rant.