How We Searched for the Hotel Montero Building—and Why It Turned Out Harder Than It Seems
When we say "reconstruction," it sounds like a ready-made solution. As if someone simply took a building and started fixing it. In reality, this solution had a beginning—and that beginning took more time than the project idea itself. Before the first crew appeared on-site, there was a long history of searching, doubts, and rejecting options that only seemed suitable at first glance.
Why We Chose Reconstruction
The first question that arises for any similar project: build from scratch or look for an existing building for reconstruction?
And it is important to make one caveat right away: reconstruction is not chosen because building from scratch is impossible or unprofitable. On the contrary, construction can be a very interesting investment format. It is simply a completely different type of project.
In the center of Alicante, there is very little vacant land available for a suitable hotel project. Finding a plot that simultaneously matches the location, the parameters of the future facility, and the project's economics is difficult. But such opportunities exist—and we ourselves consider projects that involve building from scratch.
Construction requires a different planning horizon. It is a longer process, a more complex path of approvals, and, as a rule, a larger volume of investment. Significantly more time passes from finding the plot and designing to obtaining permits, construction, and launching the facility. But that is precisely why this is a different investment scenario: a longer horizon, larger capital, and a longer period until the project reaches full payback.
We chose Hotel Montero for a different reason. This project was initially considered precisely as a reconstruction of an existing building. This format makes it possible to move faster from acquiring the property to launching the finished product, lower the entry threshold compared to full-scale construction from scratch, and achieve faster capital turnover.
That is, we were not choosing between "building is possible" and "building is impossible." We were choosing between two different investment models. For Hotel Montero at this stage, reconstruction turned out to be the more suitable option.
What Matters in an Existing Building
Reconstruction has another important advantage: the existing property already provides a certain foundation for the project. This is the already existing structure, the existing volume of the building, existing utilities, and a completely different logic of working with approvals. There is no need to start the entire process from an empty plot and create a facility literally from scratch.
But this does not at all mean that you can take any old building and turn it into a hotel. We were looking for a specific property, and the list of requirements turned out to be much longer than one might assume: a location such that everything important in the city can be reached in a few minutes; the condition of the walls, ceilings, and roof such that reconstruction actually makes economic sense rather than creating an illusion of savings that turns into hidden expenses in six months; the legal status of the property—as clear as possible and suitable for the implementation of the intended project.
Without this, everything else simply does not matter, no matter how beautiful the building itself is. That is exactly why the search took so much time.
The Building We Found—And How Many Others We Didn't Choose
What we ultimately bought was not a "dream property" from a picture in an ad. It was a building with a history that cannot be read at a single glance. It only reveals itself when you step inside.
Layers of paint from different decades on the walls—somewhere yellow, somewhere turquoise, somewhere faded green, as if every former owner added their layer without removing the previous one. Wooden roof beams that hadn't seen repairs in a long time, but at the same time turned out to be in working condition. What initially seemed like a risk turned out to be good luck in the end.
A layout clearly not designed for a hotel format: rooms of the wrong shape, passages not where they are needed now, and a space that still has to be transformed into what it should become.
That is precisely why those who looked at this same property before us did not choose it. The building required not cosmetic repairs, but a complete overhaul. And that scares away those looking for a quick result and a straightforward estimate.
We were looking for something else. We needed a property into which we could invest a full development plan for years ahead, rather than just doing some repairs and getting a pretty picture for the season.
The Preparatory Stage: What Isn't Visible in Pretty Photos
Before starting to build anything at all, the building must be prepared. And it is precisely this stage that is currently underway on-site. This is not the most spectacular part of the project, but it is precisely what determines how smoothly everything else will go.
Demolition of Non-Load-Bearing Structures
We are removing partitions and floor sections that are not part of the building's structural scheme. This is what can be changed without risk to the main structure, and this is exactly where one should start. Space is cleared for further work with elements that can no longer be changed or require a completely different approach: load-bearing walls, the roof, and structural elements.
For now, it looks like destruction. In fact, it is clearing the site for real work.
Removal of Construction Waste
Every demolished meter of partition, every stripped layer of old plaster is not an abstraction, but a specific volume of construction waste that needs to be physically removed from the site. And only after that can one move on to the next stage.
This is perhaps the most boring part of the project, about which no one usually writes articles. And at the same time, it is one of those parts without which no subsequent stage is possible.
Ensuring Safety Standards on Site
An active construction site is not just a work process. There are mandatory safety requirements: perimeter fencing, personal protective equipment for those on-site, access control, and monitoring of who is inside and when.
This is not a formality just for show. When a site has open ceilings, demolished walls, and ongoing construction work, safety becomes a separate part of the project.
Temporary Connection of Electricity and Water
A separate and not the fastest process is coordinating the temporary connection of electricity and water with the city hall. Without temporary utilities, construction physically cannot move past a certain stage.
Equipment does not work properly, it is impossible to organize a number of construction processes, and additional restrictions arise for contractors. This is precisely where those unpredictable delays that are rarely talked about in projects of this kind often appear.
Because admitting "we are waiting for approval" is much less photogenic than showing a beautiful construction site. But this is also part of a real project.
What's Next
Right now, Hotel Montero is at precisely the stage that is usually not shown. There are no beautiful photos of finished rooms yet, no furniture, no final lighting, no interior that will become the result of all the work.
For now, there is demolition, construction waste, old walls, and many tasks that must be solved before a beautiful "after" appears. But it is right now that everything else is being laid down.
Because reconstruction is not just doing repairs in an old building. It is finding the right property, checking its capabilities, dealing with documentation, understanding the project economics, going through the necessary approvals, and only after that turning the existing space into a completely new product.
And in this lies, perhaps, the main difference between Hotel Montero and a project built from scratch. We are not saying that one format is better than the other.
Building from scratch is a separate, longer, and larger-scale investment path. Reconstruction is another.
In our case, it was reconstruction that made it possible to choose a faster implementation scenario, enter the project with a different volume of investment, and already show the process of creating a hotel practically in real-time.
And next comes the most interesting part—the moment when everything that looks like demolition and construction chaos today begins to transform into Hotel Montero.
