This Wednesday, the Departmental Board of Maldonado received from the mayor’s office, Enrique Antía, the new project with modifications for the construction of a complex with a luxury hotel, casino, spa and tennis court, among other amenities, where was the collapsed Hotel San Rafael.
“The firm Fosara SA presented a new set of plans in which the tallest tower moves away from the boulevard and is located near the center of the block. The work will begin six months after the construction permit is approved and the reconstruction of the old hotel will be a priority”, says a statement from Antía.
As published Maldonado News, the new plans project three towers and, the highest one, moves away from the Lorenzo Batlle Pacheco boulevard and will be located closer to the center of the block. The work would begin six months after receiving the go-ahead.
The replica of the former Hotel San Rafael will have priority: it would have the four original floors, the attic, the entrance lobby and the mezzanine, but the number of rooms, which were originally 150, will now be only 80. The basement will go from three to Two levels.
In total, the construction area will total 170,084 square meters between the casino, the towers and other buildings.
Fosara SA was sued
Fosara SA is a company with investments of different origins. One of those who are in front of this company is the Italian billionaire businessman Giuseppe Cipriani, who has residence in New York and Maldonado.
In this new version of the project, the Egyptian mangate Naguib Sawiris came to play, descendant of a long line of billionaires, who has a fortune of more than US $ 3,400 million, according to data from the magazine Forbes. She is the second richest person in Egypt.
In December 2011, founded the Cipriani resort, spa and cacino in Punta del Este, and personally coordinated the negotiations for the purchase of the former San Rafael.
The current real estate project has not been without controversy, from the demolition of the historic hotel to conflicts with companies that have been involved in the process. According to public the newspaper Punta del Este MailFosara was sued by a local real estate company that claims to have acted as an intermediary for the sale of the property.
The demand was for US$3.3 million and it is for damages: from the office they affirm that they were exclusive intermediaries in the purchase-sale, and they ask for 6% of the US$55 million of the business. From Fosara they rather assure that there is no such agreement.
“There is no such agreement. And it never existed. The statutes of the FOSARA firm establish the prohibition of granting this type of agreement for any type of operation. For this reason, we are not only unaware of the existence of such a contract, but we assure that there is no such obligation,” said the firm’s legal advisor, lawyer Juan Carlos Dutra, after a hearing in which there was no conciliation between the parties.
