A plot of more than 12,000 square metres a few minutes from Puerto Banús has changed hands, bought by a Costa del Sol developer from a company tied to the legacy of José Banús, the businessman who built the marina in 1970 and gave Nueva Andalucía its name. The sale, reported in early August 2026, sits beside the Hotel Guadalpín Banús and is earmarked for a residential scheme the developer estimates will be worth around €150 million once complete.
Plots of that size rarely come up for sale in an area built out decades ago, which is precisely why the deal matters to anyone watching property for sale in Puerto Banús or property for sale in Nueva Andalucía. A single large acquisition does not move a market on its own, but it does confirm what buyers chasing stock in this corner of Marbella have suspected for some time, which is that land capable of hosting a scheme this size has become the scarcest commodity on the coast.
The homes themselves are planned to start at around 170 square metres, with large terraces and private gardens for ground floor units. Penthouses will crown the scheme, aimed squarely at international buyers used to five star service rather than a standard new build.
A Landmark Plot Changes Hands Near Puerto Banús
The seller was a company linked to the estate of José Banús, whose name still marks the marina gates and the wider district of Nueva Andalucía that grew up around his 1964 development. Selling a plot tied to that legacy is not a routine transaction, and the developer involved described the purchase as one of its largest land acquisitions to date, a sign of how much weight the company is putting behind the scheme.
No purchase price was disclosed, only the estimated value of the finished development, which the developer puts at around €150 million. That figure covers construction, fit out and the five star amenities planned for the site rather than the cost of the land itself, so it should be read as a measure of ambition rather than a direct guide to what the plot changed hands for.
The scheme is currently entering its planning, design and urban permitting phase, with no construction or completion date yet confirmed. That timeline is normal for a project of this scale in Marbella, where a scheme spends a year or more moving through council approval before the first digger arrives on site, and it leaves plenty of time for JUST to update buyers as detailed plans emerge.
The seller’s connection to José Banús adds a layer of local history to what is otherwise a straightforward commercial transaction. Nueva Andalucía takes its name directly from the development he launched in 1964, six years before the marina itself opened, and a plot changing hands from his estate to a new generation of builders is the kind of continuity that gives this particular sale more resonance than the acreage alone would suggest.
What the New Scheme Will Offer
Homes are planned to start at roughly 170 square metres, a size that rules out the smaller apartments common in older Nueva Andalucía blocks and signals a scheme built for buyers who already own a family sized home elsewhere. Ground floor units are planned with private gardens, and the development will be topped by penthouses, a layout familiar from recent launches along the Golden Mile and in Marbella more broadly.
The amenity list reads like a hotel brochure rather than a traditional residential block, with a spa, a gym, outdoor pools, wellness areas, social spaces, concierge service and security all described as part of the plan. That approach has become close to standard for anything built near Puerto Banús in the past five years, since buyers at this price point increasingly expect a development to run itself rather than leave owners to arrange their own staff and upkeep.
Sustainability criteria and landscape integration are mentioned as design principles for the project, though the developer has not yet published specifics on materials or energy performance. JUST expects more detail to surface once the scheme reaches the design stage proper, and will update its own new developments listing as soon as floor plans and pricing become available to clients.
Financing a New Generation of Schemes
The developer has said it will use alternative financing alongside traditional bank credit, naming PrestaPro and Wecity as partners in the structure. That mix has become more common on the coast as developers look to start construction without relying solely on presales or a single lending relationship, spreading risk across several sources rather than concentrating it in one bank’s underwriting decision.
For buyers considering a property still under construction, how a developer finances a scheme is as relevant as the finish on the kitchen units, since a well capitalised project is far less likely to stall midway through a build. JUST’s own guide to buying off plan sets out the questions worth asking before signing a reservation contract, and a developer’s financing structure sits near the top of that list.
Alternative lenders such as the two named here have grown quickly on the Costa del Sol precisely because traditional Spanish banks remain cautious about financing speculative construction, preferring to lend once a scheme already has a meaningful share of units reserved. A developer able to secure funding before reservations open can start groundworks sooner, which in a market this short of stock is itself a competitive advantage over a rival project waiting on presales.
Puerto Banús’s Enduring Pull
Puerto Banús has drawn buyers and visitors since José Banús opened the marina in May 1970, and more than half a century later it remains the single most recognisable address on this stretch of coast. The marina covers around 15 hectares and berths several hundred boats, and the Municipality of Marbella has put annual visitor numbers at close to five million, a scale that still shapes everything built nearby.
That enduring pull is exactly why a developer would pay a premium for a plot a few minutes’ walk from Puerto Banús rather than build further inland, where land is more plentiful and considerably cheaper. Proximity to Puerto Banús remains one of the few genuinely scarce assets left on the Costa del Sol, and this sale shows a developer is still willing to pay handsomely for it even as land elsewhere in Marbella sits unsold.
The marina’s own owners have spent recent years modernising the berths themselves, replacing older wooden pontoons with floating walkways able to take larger vessels, work the ownership group has funded in parallel with the residential building boom around it. A marina investing in its own infrastructure tends to reassure developers building nearby, since it signals the asset at the centre of the neighbourhood is not simply coasting on its reputation.
Nueva Andalucía’s Price Climb
Nueva Andalucía’s own price data backs up that scarcity story. idealista’s figures for August 2026 put the area at €6,239 per square metre, up 5.7% over twelve months, while Engel & Völkers recorded average house prices of around €5,526 per square metre in July, up 4.8% on the year, with apartments at roughly €5,174 per square metre. The gap between the two figures reflects different methods and sample sizes rather than a contradiction, and both point the same direction.
Rents have climbed alongside sale prices, with Engel & Völkers recording average house rents of about €21.67 per square metre, up around 7% year on year. That pairing of rising sale prices and rising rents is usually a sign that demand is outstripping supply on both sides of the market at once, rather than buyers simply switching from renting to owning or the other way round.
Indomio’s own figures, drawn from a different sample of listings, put Nueva Andalucía even higher at €6,554 per square metre in May 2026, up 8.9% on the year. The spread between that figure and idealista’s €6,239 is a reminder that no single portal captures the whole market, and JUST treats each as one data point among several rather than a definitive price, particularly in a district as varied as Nueva Andalucía, which stretches from modest apartment blocks to estates bordering Spain’s third most expensive street in neighbouring Benahavís.
A Golden Triangle Market in Context
The wider Golden Triangle of Marbella, Estepona and Benahavís told a similar story over the first half of 2026. JUST’s own Q2 market report recorded 3,422 homes sold between January and June, a fall of 20.7% on the same period in 2025, even as the average transaction price rose 15.5% to €4,366 per square metre. Fewer sales at sharply higher prices is the clearest possible sign of a market short of stock rather than short of buyers.
Set against that backdrop, a developer committing €150 million to a single scheme near Puerto Banús looks less like a bet on a hot market and more like a rational response to a shortage that JUST’s own data, and now a major land purchase, both confirm. Clients using JUST’s valuation calculator on homes in Nueva Andalucía have seen that shortage reflected in their own numbers over the past year.
Knight Frank’s PIRI 100 index, tracking prime residential values across the world’s most sought after addresses, recorded an 8.1% rise for Marbella in 2025, placing it among the stronger performing markets the index covers. A scheme pitched squarely at the international buyers that index measures gives the €150 million estimate a plausible foundation, rather than treating it as a marketing figure detached from how this part of the coast has actually been pricing.
Scarce Land, Rising Competition
Nueva Andalucía was largely built out through the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, which means a 12,000 square metre plot close to Puerto Banús is not a routine listing but closer to a once in a cycle opportunity. Most new supply in the district now comes from redeveloping older blocks rather than building on open land, a slower and more expensive process that tends to produce smaller schemes than this one.
That scarcity explains why the new developments JUST tracks across the area increasingly compete on service and amenity rather than on price, since the land itself has largely stopped getting any cheaper. A buyer comparing two schemes within walking distance of Puerto Banús today is far more likely to be weighing concierge hours and pool size than negotiating hard on the headline price per square metre.
Older blocks from the 1970s and 1980s still make up a large share of what is listed on JUST’s current properties in the district, and many are strong candidates for renovation rather than replacement, since a well positioned apartment with dated interiors can often be modernised for a fraction of what a comparable new build would cost. That option matters more each year a scheme like this one takes a further bite out of the area’s remaining open land.
What the Deal Signals for the Area
A single land sale rarely changes a market by itself, but this one lands at a moment when buyers searching What Are You Looking For are increasingly specifying Nueva Andalucía and the streets around Puerto Banús by name rather than browsing the wider Marbella area. A developer willing to commit €150 million to a single scheme here is making the same bet those buyers are making with smaller sums, that proximity to the marina will keep paying off.
The council’s own role in the process is worth noting too, since the developer specifically thanked Marbella’s urban planning department for its support through the early phases. A scheme of this size moving smoothly through planning, rather than stalling for years as some Costa del Sol projects have, is itself a small data point in favour of the area’s momentum, and one JUST will be watching as the project moves from paperwork to groundwork.
The developer behind the purchase already has roughly 190 homes under way across several Costa del Sol projects, which gives this scheme a track record to draw on even before the first brick is laid. For buyers weighing whether to commit to a project at this early stage, that existing pipeline is often a more useful signal than the brochure renders, since it shows a company capable of carrying several large schemes at once rather than staking everything on one address near Puerto Banús.
