The Levante Almeriense is finally getting the investment it deserves — and it shows
If you have spent any time researching property on the Almería coast, you have probably come across the phrase hidden gem more times than you can count. We are going to skip that one entirely. What we want to talk about instead is something more useful: a concrete, documented wave of investment that is changing the infrastructure and services of the Levante Almeriense right now, in 2024 and 2025.
At ZAR 2010 we have been selling property in Garrucha, Vera, Mojácar and San Juan de los Terreros for thirty years. A large part of our clients come from the UK and Ireland. We know what questions matter most to British and Irish buyers — healthcare, transport links, day-to-day amenities — and for the first time in a long while, the answers to all three are getting significantly better.
This article runs through every major project currently underway or recently completed in the area, with real dates, real figures and real sources. No spin, no vague promises.
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Value my home →Roads and transport: getting around is about to become much easier
The Mojácar bypass: relief for the Avenida del Mediterráneo
Anyone who has driven along the Avenida del Mediterráneo in Mojácar in July or August knows the problem. The main coastal road through the resort becomes a slow-moving queue for most of the summer, frustrating residents, visitors and delivery drivers in equal measure. The solution has been demanded for years, and it is now being built.
Construction of the Mojácar coastal bypass began in January 2023 with a 24-month execution period, which puts the expected completion date at early 2025. The new road will divert through-traffic away from the Avenida, improve access to inland areas, cut journey times and — importantly — reduce accident rates on a stretch that has always been a concern.
For permanent residents this means getting home in August without the summer traffic making it a miserable experience. For potential buyers, it is a quality-of-life improvement that affects daily life every single day, not just in the abstract.
New roundabout at La Simona junction, Garrucha: over a million euros invested in road safety
The La Simona junction on the A-370 road is the main entry point into Garrucha and has been regarded as a dangerous spot for a long time. The Junta de Andalucía has announced an investment of more than one million euros to redesign the junction by building a roundabout.
The project is currently at the tendering stage, which means the administrative process for awarding the contract is under way. This is not an election announcement: the procurement process is live. The roundabout will improve traffic flow and, crucially, is expected to reduce the number of collisions at a point that locals have flagged as dangerous for years.
It is the kind of improvement that rarely makes headlines but has an immediate, tangible impact on the people who drive that road every day.
Healthcare: the upgrade that matters most to British and Irish buyers
When British and Irish clients ask us about life in the Levante Almeriense, healthcare usually comes up within the first five minutes. It is a completely reasonable concern. The area is relatively remote by Spanish standards, and until recently the medical infrastructure reflected that. That is changing rapidly.
New Mojácar Health Centre: opened September 2024
For years, healthcare in Mojácar relied on a small beach-side consultorio that was never really adequate for the area’s needs, particularly in summer when the population surges. That building is now history.
In September 2024, the President of the Junta de Andalucía, Juanma Moreno, officially opened the new Mojácar Health Centre. This is a proper, modern medical facility: it has emergency consultations, nursing, paediatrics, dentistry, minor surgery and a radiology unit. Services that previously required a drive to Vera or further are now available in Mojácar itself.
For families with children, having paediatrics nearby matters. For older residents, access to minor surgery and X-rays without a thirty-kilometre drive is genuinely significant. And for buyers weighing up the practicalities of living in southeastern Spain, this is the kind of concrete improvement that shifts the calculation.
Vithas private hospital in Vera Playa: the project that could transform the whole area
The new health centre is a major step forward. But the project that has generated the most excitement in the Levante Almeriense is on a different scale entirely.
Vithas, one of Spain’s largest private hospital groups, has announced its intention to build a new hospital in Vera Playa. Vithas currently operates 20 hospitals and 39 medical centres across Spain and is known for offering a broad range of medical and surgical specialities, along with a reputation for technological investment and clinical quality.
A Vithas hospital in Vera Playa would bring specialist private healthcare to within a short drive for residents across the entire coastal strip of the Levante Almeriense. To put that in context: right now, accessing many private medical specialities requires travelling to Almería city or even to Murcia. That would no longer be necessary.
We want to be clear about where this project stands: at the time of writing, Vithas has expressed its intention to build. There is no confirmed opening date yet. But a hospital group of that size does not identify a location without serious analysis of the market. The fact that they have chosen Vera Playa says something important about how they read the growth trajectory of this area.
Transport links: getting to and from the area
New Mojácar bus station: open since November 2023
In November 2023 Mojácar opened its new bus station, centralising inter-urban bus services in a modern, purpose-built facility. Previously, bus users in Mojácar had to navigate a patchwork of stops without a proper terminal, which made using public transport more complicated than it needed to be.
The new station gives residents and visitors a clear, comfortable hub for bus connections to Almería city, Murcia and other destinations. For the growing number of buyers who prefer not to depend entirely on a car — a profile we see increasingly among British and Irish clients who are moving to the area permanently or semi-permanently — this kind of infrastructure matters.
Vera-Almanzora AVE station: the biggest long-term game changer
Of everything happening in the Levante Almeriense right now, the project with the greatest potential to reshape the area over the next decade is the planned Vera-Almanzora high-speed rail station, which will form part of the new AVE line between Almería and Murcia.
This is not an announcement on a poster. Adif Alta Velocidad — the state body responsible for Spain’s high-speed rail network — has already begun the expropriation process for approximately 44,000 square metres of land needed to build the station. The publication of that process in the Boletín Oficial del Estado (Spain’s official government gazette) confirms that the project is advancing through the formal administrative stages. The station will include parking and proper road access.
When the line is operational, journey times between the Levante Almeriense, Almería city and Murcia will fall dramatically. That changes the profile of who can realistically live here: people who work in Murcia, people who need regular access to Almería, people who want to be able to reach Madrid or Valencia without a lengthy drive to an airport.
High-speed rail does not arrive overnight. But the land acquisition process is under way, and that is the kind of administrative milestone that signals real commitment. Buyers who purchase in the area before the line opens are doing so before those improved connections are priced into the market.
Shopping and everyday amenities
Aldi expansion pointing towards the area
Day-to-day shopping options in the Levante Almeriense have improved considerably over recent years, but it remains an area where the commercial offer lags behind more established resort zones on the Mediterranean coast. That gap is beginning to close.
Aldi has announced plans to open 10 new stores in Spain in the coming months. There is no official confirmation of a Mojácar opening at the time of publication, but the chain’s expansion pattern — moving into coastal areas with growing year-round populations — is consistent with the direction of travel in this part of Almería.
We include this with that caveat clearly stated: it is a credible possibility, not a confirmed fact. But it fits the broader picture of a zone that is attracting private commercial investment alongside the public infrastructure spending described in this article.
What does all this mean for property buyers?
Thirty years in this market has taught us one thing above all others: the value of a property is inseparable from the quality of the environment around it. Roads, healthcare, transport links, shops, safety — these are not extras. They are part of what you are buying.
When a relatively compact coastal area receives, within a short space of time, a newly opened health centre with radiology and minor surgery, a new bus station, a completed bypass, a roundabout at a long-standing accident black spot, a formal land acquisition process for a high-speed rail station and a commitment from a major private hospital group to build in the area, something significant is happening. Experienced property investors recognise this pattern.
We are not suggesting prices will double overnight, because that kind of statement serves no one. What we are saying is that buying in an area that is visibly and documentably improving is a very different proposition from buying somewhere that has stagnated.
For those already living in the area
If you already own a property here, this news is good on two levels. The direct one: your daily life is going to get more comfortable. The indirect one: sustained, documented infrastructure improvement is the strongest possible foundation for maintaining and building on the value of what you own.
For those considering a purchase
The question we hear most often is: when is the right time? There is never a perfect moment, and we will not pretend otherwise. But buying into an area where infrastructure projects are in active construction or formal procurement — not just announced, actually progressing — means buying before those improvements are fully reflected in asking prices. That is a meaningful distinction.
Specifically for British and Irish buyers
We work with a lot of clients from the UK and Ireland, and we know that two questions come up every time: How good is the healthcare? and How do I get back home easily? In the space of less than a year, Mojácar has opened a full health centre with radiology and minor surgery, and the formal land acquisition for a high-speed rail station at Vera is under way. Those are concrete, verifiable answers to both questions. They represent a genuine shift from where things stood five years ago.
A region that is taking itself seriously
The transformation under way in the Levante Almeriense is not the result of one grand plan. It is the convergence of several independent investment streams — regional government projects from the Junta de Andalucía, national infrastructure spending through Adif, and private sector commitments from companies like Vithas — that happen to be arriving at the same time.
Not everything is finished. Some projects are in early stages. The AVE will not arrive tomorrow. The Vithas hospital does not yet have a confirmed opening date. But the administrative and financial machinery behind the most significant projects is already turning, which is what distinguishes this moment from previous periods when improvements were promised but rarely delivered.
For those of us who have been here for decades, the current level of simultaneous activity is genuinely unprecedented in recent memory. For those discovering the area now and thinking about buying, the timing is worth reflecting on.
How ZAR 2010 can help
We have been selling property in Garrucha, Vera, Mojácar and San Juan de los Terreros since 1995. We know which specific zones are most directly affected by each of the projects described in this article, what questions to ask before committing to a purchase and what the local market actually looks like beyond the listings on property portals.
If you would like to talk through what is happening in the area, get an honest picture of the current market or find out how a particular property fits into everything described here, get in touch. There is no pressure and no sales pitch: just a conversation with people who have been working this market for thirty years and genuinely know it.
