IKEA Portugal has slipped out a notification that, following its expansion plan it today has started the land cleaning process at the site between Loulé and Faro where it plans to build a large shopping development.
According to the Swedish company, 'this is the first step of the construction process of a project that includes an IKEA store and a shopping center, which will allow the creation of 3,000 direct and indirect jobs, for a total investment amount of €200 million.’
Missing from the company statement was any news of the legal process and whether IKEA has won the court battle against a group of local business people and the Algarve Hoteliers’ Association which sought to halt the development as it would damage trade.
In January 2014, an IKEA spokesman said that the investment would still go ahead but due to the scale and complexity of the project the store and associated shopping centre now will open in 2015, not in 2014 as originally planned.
Then in March 2014, IKEA Portugal confirmed that it has started an administrative action in the Court of Loulé to defend its ground over the project.
This was in retaliation to a February 2014 court action by the Association of Entrepreneurs of Quarteira and Vilamoura which mounted a class action against the development.
Whether all of this has been sorted out remains to be confirmed but in the meantime, the machinery will start to clear the site with a 2015 deadline now an impossibility.
Comments
Because it's too far from anywhere and who lives there anyway ? I won't drive to go there.