The Tarragona City Council will take Desarrollos Arbe to court if the company does not pay the debt accumulated from emergency works and the sanctions imposed for the deterioration of Ca l'Ardiaca, the medieval mansion located opposite the Cathedral. The amount claimed is close to one million euros and the council maintains that it will exhaust all legal avenues for the property owner to assume the cost.
The main contradiction in the case is that the building has the highest heritage protection from the Generalitat de Catalunya and, even so, it still lacks a defined use and its conservation costs are provisionally covered by the local administration. More than 25 years after the first announcements to restore it as a luxury hotel, the property remains blocked and with no signs of reactivation by the company.
The City Council claims almost one million after the urgent works of February 2024
A central part of the debt corresponds to the emergency intervention carried out in February 2024, which cost around 600,000 euros and was paid for by the council. The works included reinforcing the shoring, repairing a hole in the roof that caused leaks, and replacing the external scaffolding.
In addition to this bill, the City Council adds economic sanctions for the poor state of conservation of the property. The building was listed as a Bé Cultural d'Interès Nacional by the Generalitat de Catalunya in April 2025, which reinforces the legal obligations of custody and preservation of the property.
Rubén Viñuales, the mayor of Tarragona, has assured that the council will use "all the leeway the law allows us" for the owners to comply, "whether they like it or not." In the same vein, he maintained that this amount will return, one way or another, to the city of Tarragona.
The municipal relationship with Desarrollos Arbe, as explained by the mayor himself, is limited to requests for them to fulfill their obligations as owners and to the authorizations that the City Council needs when it has to access the building. The council has already applied sanctioning measures without receiving a response from the company.
Expropriation is ruled out, and the Generalitat asks to demand compliance with the law
The municipal government rules out expropriation. Viñuales rejected it when asked directly about its real usefulness, understanding that there is no defined project or resources to undertake a rehabilitation valued at several million euros.
In that scenario, direct intervention will not come from the regional administration either. The Government ruled out the purchase of the property and the Department of Culture maintains that the way forward is to continue requiring the owner to comply with the Law on Catalan Cultural Heritage to guarantee the preservation of the building.
Failure to comply with these conservation obligations is classified as a serious offense. The regulations allow for the imposition of coercive fines or the opening of sanctioning proceedings, tools that the City Council has already activated due to the lack of reaction from the owning company.
The hotel project remains stalled and the Guàrdia Urbana closed off an access on Plaça dels Cabrits
While the future of the property remains unconfirmed, Desarrollos Arbe has shown no signs of resuming the luxury hotel project and has also rejected purchase offers. The option of installing a Parador Nacional was also ruled out some time ago, when that possibility was diverted to the Bank of Spain.
In parallel, the Guàrdia Urbana of Tarragona boarded up an access from Plaça dels Cabrits after detecting squatters in an adjoining 19th-century dwelling. That adjacent property was to be integrated into the future project to improve its economic viability.
Viñuales added that the City Council receives potential interested parties and tries to facilitate a solution for the estate together with the Generalitat de Catalunya. As of today, however, there is no project planned in the short or medium term for Ca l'Ardiaca.
More than 25 years have passed since the first recovery plans for the building were announced for a luxury hotel, and the medieval mansion continues to be without definitive use opposite the Cathedral of Tarragona.