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The city council and the owners of Plaza Mayor are looking for the best location for the future park-and-ride facility. Traffic Malaga's Plaza Mayor shopping centre seeks to unblock its expansion plan with park-and-ride car park for more than 1,000 vehiclesThe city's transport department has issued a negative report, which Plaza Mayor management hopes to overturn by introducing traffic improvements in the area
Jesús Hinojosa
Friday, 9 January 2026, 15:14
A multi-million-euro plan to expand the Plaza Mayor shopping complex has hit a bureaucratic dead-end, as transport authorities refuse to sign off on a project they fear will paralyze the city’s western road networks.
Despite being fast-tracked through the "project acceleration units" of both the Malaga City Council and the Andalusian regional government, the expansion has languished in a paper trail for over four years. At the heart of the deadlock is a scathing technical report from the transport department, which remains the final obstacle.
The plan is for a 14,000 square metres expansion of the McArthurGlen Designer Outlet to the east and another 7,500 square metres for the expansion of the current Plaza Mayor shopping centre to the west, occupying part of the car park next to the Guadalmar motorway.
The move to modify the General Urban Development Plan (PGOU) has been met with a hostility from local residents. Hundreds of formal objections have been lodged by the Guadalmar community, who argue that the area is already pushed to its breaking point by daily traffic congestion.
According to sources at SUR, the city’s transport department has aligned itself with these concerns. Its latest report effectively vetoes the expansion, stipulating that no progress can be made until the developers provide "further measures" to mitigate the impact on the city's western traffic arteries.
Faced with this situation, the owners of Plaza Mayor are willing to do whatever it takes to overcome these objections and carry out the new expansion of the shopping centre, for which they signed an agreement with the city council in 2021.
One of the latest proposals they have put on the table is to build, at their own expense, a park-and-ride car park with capacity for 1,100 vehicles, where Plaza Mayor customers can leave their cars and then take the Cercanías train to the centre of Malaga.
It is estimated that around 600 or 700 of the vehicles that park at the shopping centre belong to commuters using the local train service, so this park-and-ride facility will relieve some of the traffic pressure. However, this facility's location is still unclear.
Plaza Mayor has proposed locating it on a triangular plot of land it owns, south of Ikea and the railway line, just 130 metres from the commuter train station. Private companies are willing to build this car park, worth more than five million euros, and the transport department welcomes the offer, as the car park is included in the traffic plan for Malaga for the coming years.
However, the urban planning department has raised objections to the location because it is classified as a green area, meaning that only 10% of its surface area should be used for parking. According to the local ruling team, changing the classification of this plot "would delay the expansion" of the shopping centre. Therefore, as they explained, "other nearby plots classified as facilities have been proposed" and are currently "reviewed with the developers.
"The city council is in favour of building this car park wherever possible," they said.
Another measure that Plaza Mayor is already implementing to improve access is the construction of a new road that will connect this area with the old N-340. This project, which involves an investment of around four million euros, includes the construction of an underpass beneath the commuter train line, for which a bridge has already been demolished.
The owners of the shopping centre are confident that this new northern access will be operational by early 2026, which could reduce traffic at the entrance from the Guadalmar motorway and improve connections to the plots that could house the park-and-ride facility.
There is a third project that is key to the shopping centre expansion getting the green light. This involves doubling the southbound carriageway of the Guadalmar motorway with two additional lanes, as Plaza Mayor did with the northbound carriageway for its previous expansion, from the roundabout at Golf Parador to the access to that area.
According to sources, the central government has approved this project, which will also be carried out by Plaza Mayor, at a cost of more than six million euros. The roads department of the Ministry of Transport has already made it clear that this intervention could be decisive in terms of authorising the commercial expansion. In addition, Plaza Mayor remains committed to widening the Campo de Golf road.
With all these factors in place, the private sector is confident that the expansion project will receive final approval in 2026. The companies that own the shopping centre (Plaza Mayor Shopping, Doc Málaga Siteco and Doc Málaga Siteco Phase 2) anticipate an estimated investment of 105 million euros. The surface parking spaces that will be lost will be compensated for with new underground spaces, bringing the total to 3,846.
According to the urban planning agreement signed in 2021, in exchange for fitting this project into the planning, the municipal coffers will receive 3.8 million euros (split into two payments) and the city will obtain a 53,725-square-metre recreation and leisure park next to the San Julián district, which will also be built by the owners of Plaza Mayor, who will add a football pitch. This park is valued at 1,611,750 euros.