The achingly beautiful Belmarço Palace in Faro was left empty by the Portuguese government having abandoned its development plans years ago after wasting €250,000 of taxpayers’ money.
To add insult to injury the government now has sold the building to a drinks wholesaler for a further irretrievable loss.
Estamo, the government real estate company controlled by Parpública, bought the building for €700,000 in 2006 and 8 years later has just sold it at a 30% discount.
Estamo confirmed today to Portuguese news service 'Público' that "the deed for the purchase of the property was made earlier in the month of September" and that the sale value "was €481,000."
This is a difference of almost €220,000 compared to the amount paid by Estamo, in September 2006, when it acquired the palace from the Directorate General of Heritage, after plans to develop the building collapsed.
Estamo has revealed the buyer only as ‘Suburbs’ which could be Suburbs Investimentos Lda, or its holding company Surburbs SPGS Lda, which is majority-owned by an unregistered British company, referred to only as ‘Barod.’
Suburbs is registered in Faro and made €1.7 million last year from its Herdade do Menhir vineyard in the Alentejo and its tourist development Lagoa do Ruivo in Castro Marim.
The company has not revealed why its directors want an early C20th palace but the deal hopefully will see some positive development at the building which is in a state of disrepair, having been abandoned 18 years ago when acquired by Faro council for the equivalent of €187,500 with a plan to use the building as Faro’s Court of Appeal.
At the turn of the millennium the building was handed over to the Ministry of Justice which had the same plan, but the project stalled in 2006 when the José Sócrates government decided against using the old building.
The municipality had ‘invested’ €250,000 in the rehabilitation of the building but never got around to finishing the project, mainly because when contractors started digging to install an elevator, the municipality concluded that the costs might slip a little over budget as the foundations of the palace were level with the water table, a situation that any experienced Faro builder could have predicted.
The dispute between the City Hall and the Ministry of Justice about the future of Belmarço Palace really heated up in 2006 when the council was informed from above that the Directorate General of Heritage had sold the palace to Estamo, the company that had been taking over numerous public buildings and generating completely artificial profits for the state.
With this current sale concluded, with significant losses for the taxpayer over many years, it is hoped that Faro council will concentrate on what it is good at, and when this is defined, communicate a brief summary to its ratepayers.
In the meantime, with the palace now under commercial ownership, Faro residents look forward to new plans and the propsed use for the delightful building.
