[Gran Scala] Spain “Steps into Space” at SpacePortGranScala
SpacePortLeisure and International Leisure Development sign Agreement for SpacePortGranScala, a futuristic space city at Gran Scala in Aragón, Spain, a Planned €17 Billion Entertainment Tourism Destination.
Zaragoza, Spain (PRWEB) — SpacePortLeisure (www.SpacePortAfrica.com), a South African company headquartered in Cape Town, is the visionary and developer of the space-themed leisure and entertainment concept and has a vision to build a global business around space-themed urban city lifestyle developments, location-based entertainment and hospitality (theme parks, entertainment centers, hotels and dining destinations), digital entertainment and electronic media. The initial geographic focus has been China, where SpacePortLeisure is establishing a significant footprint, and now Western Europe with SpacePortGranScala.
Imagine a global business built on futuristic learning and entertainment, and based on the wonders of the universe and mankind’s interaction with space — that’s SpacePortLeisure.
Gran Scala is a €17 billion entertainment city to be built on 2,025 hectares in the Aragón desert and will include 32 casinos, hotels and five theme parks. A British-based consortium, International Leisure Development, whose major shareholders include Aristocrat Technologies, UFA Insurance, Ultragroup, Inc. Atlanta, USA, Europtima, and Tranchant Group, chose the location because of a possible 25 million catchment market (excluding foreign tourists) and its proximity to Zaragoza Airport, an important hub in the low cost air network. Zaragoza is also one of NASA’s Shuttle Tactical Abort Landing Sites (STAL).
The underlying core offer of SpacePortGranScala will be “Explore”, “Experience”, Innovate” and “Live”, themes that will be carried through SpacePortGranScala’s theme park, hotel, retail, and lifestyle real estate.
“Using space as a theme together with our human desire to explore, and with technology as the enabler, SpacePortLeisure will provide intelligent, stimulating, and fun-filled lifestyle, entertainment and learning experiences that will give freedom to transcend language and culture, thus creating dynamic new ways of learning and of building new communities across the globe. Our creativity will be as expansive as the Universe,” says Danny Naidoo, SpacePort Leisure’s recently appointed President & Chief Executive Officer, who, for the last five years, was a Microsoft South Africa Director, thus bringing a vast amount of knowledge and expertise to SpacePortLeisure.
Only a privileged few will be able to experience a real flight into space. In conceiving the SpacePortLeisure concept, the goal is to give visitors and residents alike, an experience of “Stepping into Space” at our SpacePort destinations says Raoul Katovsky, SpacePortLeisure’s Executive Chairman, who announced SpacePortGranScala at a major international media briefing by the Aragón Government in Zaragoza today.
Visitors to a SpacePortLeisure theme park will be whipped away from Planet Earth for the day on an awe inspiring adventure normally only experienced by a select few space tourists. From the moment they arrive, they will start the illusion that they are departing for a journey into space and throughout this journey will be entertained by attractions for all to enjoy from educational interactive displays and simulations to the wildest roller coasters for the true thrill seeker.
SpacePortLeisure as a concept is in touch with the times and will always be contemporary. It is linked to space and mankind’s continuous exploration of his Universe. The concept has longevity since it is futuristic and sustainable through software technology. Since man first gazed up at the stars, he has been inspired to discover, to travel, to experiment, to invent and understand. SpacePortLeisure involves its visitors in the vision of the future through knowledge and innovation, providing a unique blend of education and entertainment.
The mission of our SpaceportLeisure destinations is optimistic, future oriented and involving in a unique way. Everyone really is an explorer, and explorers really will make incredible discoveries about the cosmos in the next century. This place will be the rightful home of those explorers. Our “A to A Prime” narrative story paradigm involves transforming the guest from a mere observer/tourist into a participant in the story. Just about everyone wants to be an explorer — this place is the home for these daring, courageous adventurers explains Hans Deuze, SpacePortLeisure’s Acting Chief Executive Officer for Location Based Entertainment & Hospitality.
Deuze is a former Euro Disney Imagineer. Whilst working at Euro Disneyland, Deuze had vast experience and training in live show operations and special events. In 2000, Deuze was the operational producer for Walt Disney Studio’s world renowned spectacular stunt show called “Moteurs:…Action” involving specially designed cars, motor bikes, jet skis and a large cast of actors, stuntmen, technicians and support staff.
SpacePortLeisure is set to break ground late next year for SpacePortGranScala, a 95 hectare destination with a development cost of some €500 million. “BRC Imagination Arts, of Burbank, California, who have done major projects for NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and Disney, to name but a few, will generate the SpacePortGranScala Master Plan” says Katovsky.
SpacePortGranScala and the now fully funded US$330 million SpacePortShenyang in North East China are the first of several SpacePortLeisure destinations that are in the pipeline.
About SpacePortLeisure:
SpacePortLeisure, based in Cape Town, South Africa, has been developing the SpacePort concept since 2002 and is now fast tracking its commercialization, starting with the now fully funded US$330 million SpacePortShenyang Theme Park. SpacePortLeisure and its international, high profile Strategic Partner Network is well equipped to meet the challenging deadlines. In addition to theme parks and edutainment centers, hotels and dining destinations, digital entertainment and electronic media, SpacePortLeisure plans to be the premier space edutainment portal on the World Wide Web.
SpacePortLeisure produces the SpacePort high-tech 4-D animated simulation rides and other proprietary special effects content in Cape Town, taking advantage of the well established film and ICT sectors, having the full backing and support of the Cape Film Commission and Wesgro, the Government’s Western Cape economic development agency.
For further information, please visit www.SpacePortAfrica.com
Media Contacts:
Raoul Katovsky
Executive Chairman
SpacePortLeisure
Email: katovsky @ SpacePortAfrica.com
Telephone: 27 (0)82 442-8602
Danny Naidoo
President & Chief Executive
SpacePortLeisure
Email: DannyNaidoo @ SpacePortAfrica.com
Telephone: 27 (0)83 302 2272
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SpacePortLeisure
RAOUL KATOVSKY
+27824428602
E-mail Information
[Gran Scala] Más de 20 empresas proyectan instalarse en Castejón de Monegros
GranScala
![[Gran Scala] Pablo en Castejon de Monegros aiport !](http://monegrosgranscalaspain.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/pabloaeropuertodecastejonde.jpg?w=548&h=413&h=413)
Alrededor de 20 empresas han enviado solicitudes al ayuntamiento de Castejón de Monegros para comprar terrenos en el polígono industrial del municipio. Una de estas empresas tiene previsto crear de 50 a 200 puestos de trabajo en la zona.
Huesca.- La irrupción de Gran Scala en el panorama nacional e internacional ha cambiado las perspectivas de desarrollo de Los Monegros, una comarca que en muchas ocasiones ha visto cómo se pasaban de largo numerosas oportunidades para el progreso.
Municipios que antes apenas salían en los mapas, ahora están en boca de todos. Un claro ejemplo es Castejón de Monegros, que cuenta con apenas 700 habitantes y que tiene casi todos los boletos de convertirse en la localidad que acoja a Gran Scala. Y en el caso de que finalmente los promotores decidan ubicar el macro proyecto en otro municipio que también entran en las quinielas, como La Almolda o Sena, el término municipal de Castejon de Monegros linda con todos ellos.
La ahora excelente ubicación de Castejon de Monegros ha situado a este pueblo en el punto de mira de numerosos ojeadores. Alrededor de 20 empresas han dirigido formalmente solicitudes para adquirir parcelas del polígono industrial del municipio, que actualmente sólo tiene ocupados 1/3 de los 87.633 metros cuadrados de su superficie. Sobre la mesa, las empresas ya han presentado sus estudios de viabilidad y de futuro desarrollo. Tan sólo una de estas empresas, que está orientada a diversas áreas del sector servicios, tiene previsto crear de 50 a 200 puestos de trabajo que “aumentarán progresivamente”.
A parte de este repentino interés empresarial, el municipio recibe numerosas llamadas interesándose sobre las normas subsidiarias existentes para edificar.
Gran Scala in Spain for new Las Vegas (The European gambling paradise)
A VAST Las Vegas-style casino and theme park complex is to be built in a Spanish desert after the regional government in Aragon approved the £12.2 billion project.
The casino “city”, to be built on 5,000 acres over the next decade in eastern Spain, will include 32 hotels, five theme parks and, in a Las Vegas touch, may even feature “wedding chapels” to encourage honeymoon tourism. Plans also include a stadium and a conference centre. This being Spain, a bullring is envisaged, too.
One of the theme parks is to be called Spyland, where the world of James Bond will be the dominant motif. Backers plan to invite Daniel Craig and Eva Green, stars of Casino Royale, the latest Bond film, to bring a touch of glamour to the project.
“We intend to approach the owners of the Bond movies to see if we can use James Bond in Spyland,” said Didier Rancher, a French entrepreneur whose company is part of the consortium. He and others involved in it hoped that the development would become the largest casino resort in Europe, with at least 12m visitors a year.
For the moment the name of the casino city is simply Gran Escala, meaning large-scale.
The project will be formally unveiled next month. It sounds extraordinarily ambitious, to say the least: the casinos will cover the sweep of history, featuring cavemen croupiers, Roman centurions or courtiers from the time of France’s Louis XIV – not to mention agents of the KGB.
“This is going to be a new version of Las Vegas in Europe,” said a spokesman for Aristocrat Technologies, an Australian gaming company involved in the project. “It’s going to bring lots of jobs. Disneyland Paris will be tiny in comparison.”
A British-based consortium, International Leisure Development, chose the location from three possible sites in Europe because of its relatively low land prices and proximity to Zaragoza airport, an important hub in the low-cost air network.
The beige desert landscape may be reminiscent of Las Vegas but Zaragoza is only a two-hour flight from Stansted airport, near London, and the resort could attract millions of Britons, particularly after plans for a gambling expansion in Britain were placed in doubt by a review that Gordon Brown has ordered into plans for a Manchester “super-casino”.
There are no such inhibitions in Spain, where gambling is hugely popular and slot machines can be found in every bar. Spanish politicians have welcomed the casinos for the money and jobs they will bring.
Marcelino Iglesias, the socialist president of Aragon, estimated the casinos would create 30,000 new jobs. “The project is important for the whole community,” he said.
Next year Zaragoza, which even without a casino city is a tourist destination, will host Expo 2008, a world fair with an ecological theme that has attracted contributions from 95 countries. Millions have been ploughed into a high-speed rail link from Madrid to Zaragoza.
Even so the casino project is expected to run into strong objections from environmentalists, whatever organisers say about their determination to leave the pristine surrounding landscape unscathed.
Adolfo Barrena, a left-wing deputy in the opposition, is to fight the development. “Once again we are seeing that the local government is on the side of private developers instead of the needs of local people,” he said.
Planners are undeterred, however, and are confident of attracting a full house.
[Gran Scala] Spanskt ”Las Vegas” byggs i öken
Spanskt ”Las Vegas” byggs i öken
Europa ska få sitt eget Las Vegas – i ett ökenområde utanför Zaragoza i Spanien. 32 casinon, fem nöjesfält, pyramider, romerska tempel, tjurfäktningsarena och ett 70-tal hotell ska locka 25 miljoner besökare per år.
I torsdags godkände lokalregeringen i Aragonien planerna på det enorma ”Gran Scala”-projektet: 2000 hektar i Los Monegros öster om Zaragoza. Den nya nöjesstaden, en investering på 160 miljarder kronor, ska stå färdig 2015. Det första spadtaget tas i september nästa år – dagen efter att världsutställningen i Zaragoza avslutas.
–Det finns inget, och kommer inte att finnas något liknande nöjeskomplex i hela Europa, förklarade Nicholas Khin, talesman för Aristocrat Techologies, en av de tolv internationella grupper som står bakom projektet.
Enligt spanska medier kommer Gran Scala att bli världens näst största spel- och nöjesstad efter Las Vegas i Nevada, USA, känd som ”Sin City”. Platsen ska fyllas med enarmade banditer, spel- och roulettbord, 232 restauranger, 500 butiker, en golfbana, en racerbana och fem nöjesfält. Ett av dem ska heta ”Spyland”, byggt som en kopia av Pentagon, USA:s spionhögkvarter i Washington.
Europas ”Las Vegas” väntas locka 25 miljoner besökare per år – att jämföra med de 50 miljoner turister som kom till Spanien ifjol. Lokalregeringen i Aragonien satsar 250 miljoner euro på att bygga infrastrukturen – vägar, transporter, kraftledningar, vatten/avlopp – och hoppas kunna få tillbaka 600 miljoner euro per år i skatter. Och centralregeringen i Madrid tänker lätta på de statliga spelskatterna.
from:(www.svd.se)
Spanjorer bygger eget Las Vegas
Den lokala regeringen i Aragonien vill bygga en kasinostad i öknen mellan Madrid och Barcelona. Projektet ska kosta motsvarande 160 miljarder kronor och bli den näst största kasinostaden efter Las Vegas, skriver tidningen El País.I Monegroöknen, utanför Zaragoza i den spanska autonoma regionen Aragonien, vill konsortiet International Leisure Development, ILD, bygga en kasinostad med 70 hotell, 232 restauranger och 32 casinon. Enligt de högt flygande planerna ska ökenstaden också ha hundratals butiker, några nöjesparker, en golfbana samt en tjurfäktningsarena.
Projektet som kallas Gran Scala väntas kosta 17 miljarder euro, eller 160 miljarder kronor. Enligt El País är det dubbelt så mycket som Barcelona investerade när staden hade OS 1992.
Den lokala myndigheterna har gett klartecken för projektet, som ska finansieras genom investerarkonsortiet ILD, vilket består av 12 investerare från olika länder. Myndigheterna vill ge projektet extra uppmärksamhet genom den stundande spanska världsutställningen.
“Vi ska klara det. Vi lägger första stenen den 16 september nästa år, dagen efter att världsutställningen i Zaragoza slutat”, säger José Ángel Biel, andreman i Aragoniens lokala regering, till tidningen.
Han lovar att jätteprojektet årligen ska dra in 600 miljoner euro i skatt till regionen Aragonien i Spanien.
José Ángel Biel tror att efterfrågan kommer vara stark. Kasinoprojektet riktar sig nämligen inte bara till spanjorer, utan till turister från hela världen.
“Gran Scala ska enligt våra bedömningar ha 25 miljoner besökare per år och 80 procent av dem kommer att vara utlänningar”, säger han till El País.
Projektet lanserades i samband med en påkostad presskonferens där 170 journalister bjöds på champagne och såg digitala presentationer av kasinostaden.
Som ett smakprov på överdådet ska 16 historiska epoker finnas representerade vid anläggningen. Varje epok sätter stilen på två museer, två hotell och två kasinon.
Enligt El País har projektet ett brett politiskt stöd i regionen. Bara det spanska vänsterpartiet Izquierda Unida motsätter sig förslaget.
“Visst framstår vi som en festbroms, men det här verkar vara fullständig galenskap”, säger den lokale politikern Adolfo Barrena.
“Vi står mitt i en klimatdebatt och alla är överrens om att det finns problem som måste åtgärdas, exempelvis genom minskade utsläpp. Samtidigt godkänner vi ett förslag som går åt rakt motsatt håll. Det är helt uppåt väggarna.”
from:(www.di.se)
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Project Location Aragon Spain
Ontinena's location on the Aragon's map (comarca del Bajo Cinca Baix Cinca)
