Malaga to finance Auditorium construction through debt

The 2026 municipal budgets already include 5 million euros specifically for the Auditorium, positioning it as one of the three 'flagship' projects of the mandate, alongside the integration of the Guadalmedina river and the expansion of the Fair Palace. However, the long-term viability of the operation depends on Malaga's ability to attract private capital. Faced with the lack of commitment from the state, De la Torre has designed a financial roadmap that increases the municipal risk but guarantees the deadlines: Malaga will advance the money through bank debt so that the cranes arrive at the port in 2027. The Auditorium's accounts, whose total cost is already estimated at around 210 million euros, require complex financial engineering. To date, the only administrations that have guaranteed their financial backing are the Junta de Andalucía, which will contribute 25 million euros, and the Diputación de Málaga, with another 10 million. After years of unheeded demands and administrative silence from Madrid, the city council of the capital has opted for a financial maneuver to unblock its major pending cultural project: the Auditorium of Music. The mayor, Francisco de la Torre, confirmed that the City Council will assume the 45 million euros that the central government refuses to provide, resorting to a major credit operation that will allow the project to be tendered in 2026 and for work to begin before the end of the current term. This decision responds to an evident institutional frustration. The City Council aims for a large multinational to pay between 40 and 50 million euros to name the Auditorium for several decades. With this move, De la Torre closes the planning phase and ensures the tender in 2026, preventing the Auditorium from remaining just a model. In turn, the City Council has committed to injecting 20 million of its own funds, summing the allocations from the 2025 and 2026 budgets and income from the sale of port land. However, the financial gap is still notable. This latter option offers, in exchange for an annual contribution of 220,000 euros for five years, 40% tax advantages in the Corporate Tax and visibility on a 'founders' wall'. The 45 million euros that should correspond to the central government are missing, if it were to equal its participation to that of other major cultural infrastructures in Spain, and, above all, the approximately 110 million that must come from private initiative. This is where the City Council has decided to intervene directly: it will request a loan close to 150 million euros to cover both the state part and to advance the amounts that, theoretically, the private companies will pay in the coming years. A credit line to compensate for the government's inaction De la Torre has explained that the objective is to carry out this credit operation in 2026. Although the City Council keeps the door open for the State to rectify and join the consortium in the future, municipal planning no longer counts on that variable to move forward. De la Torre has acknowledged that he has 'sown the idea' with three or four large companies and is awaiting responses, although for the moment there is no signed contract. To complete the rest of the private financing, the involvement of between 20 and 30 collaborating companies that will contribute between 2 and 3 million each is sought, as well as a patronage program aimed at the local business fabric. The calendar managed by the Casona del Parque places the tender for the project throughout 2026, with the aim of laying the first stone in 2027. The City Council thus assumes the economic weight of the operation in the face of the inaction of the Ministry, resorting to debt to reactivate a key infrastructure. This liquidity injection will act as a financial bridge: it will allow the project to be awarded and the initial certifications to be paid without depending on the Ministry of Culture changing its mind or the private sponsors disbursing the money immediately. Mayor De la Torre has defined this strategy as an exercise in realism in the face of the attitude of the Pedro Sánchez executive, which he accuses of disengaging from the project. Although private negotiations are still in an early phase, the political message is unequivocal: the works will start with or without the money in the box, backed by the city's borrowing capacity. The model designed by the City Council bets more than half of the building's cost, some 110 million euros, on corporate patronage, a formula common in the United States but with less tradition in Spanish public works. The cornerstone of this scheme is the sale of the venue's name. Malaga has decided not to wait any longer. The popular mayor has noted that the Ministry of Culture has chosen to 'stand aside' from an infrastructure that the city considers strategic for its consolidation as the cultural capital of Southern Europe.