Fuengirola Completes First Phase of High-Altitude Sports Hub Fuengirola's ambitious project to convert an abandoned quarry into a 27,000-square-metre sports mountain reaches its first major milestone ahead of October. A dusty hillside above Fuengirola that spent decades as a working quarry is finally being put to civic use. Municipal engineers are putting the finishing touches to the first operational phase of the Montaña del Deporte – Sports Mountain – with council inspectors expected to sign off the primary platforms before the end of next week, just as the autumn weather sets in. Repurposing Coastal Wasteland The scheme reclaims around 27,000 square metres of uneven, rocky terrain in the town's upper district, turning what has long been an eyesore into a stepped, terraced leisure park. Anyone who has driven the back roads above Fuengirola will know the site: a scarred slope of exposed rock and scrub that has sat largely untouched since quarrying operations ceased. Town planners designed the complex to serve outdoor sports enthusiasts who, until now, had to head to neighbouring municipal parks or drive inland towards the Mijas mountains to find proper hill-running routes or open-air calisthenics equipment. By cutting terraces into the old quarry face, the works create separate zones for functional fitness training, running circuits and viewing platforms that look out over the town and the coastline beyond. Heavy machinery has been on site for several weeks, reshaping the gradient and installing retaining barriers designed to hold the slope stable once the autumn rains arrive. Quarry sites are notoriously unstable once exposed to sustained rainfall, so this groundwork has been treated as a priority before any of the athletic surfaces or public access points could be finished. Family Shading and Active Spaces The first phase covers the core athletic areas and, just as importantly, the parking provision needed to stop cars clogging the narrow residential streets that wind up through the hillside neighbourhoods. Anyone who lives in that part of Fuengirola knows how quickly kerbside parking fills up when a new amenity opens without adequate provision, so this has clearly been factored into the initial works. Further building packages are pencilled in for the winter months. These will add shaded pergolas and canvas awnings, planting of native Mediterranean scrub to help bind the exposed soil, picnic clearings, and softer walking paths intended for families and older residents rather than serious athletes. It is these later additions that should turn the site from a specialist training ground into somewhere genuinely useful for the wider community – parents with young children, older couples out for an evening stroll, or anyone simply looking for shade and a view. The town hall has been keen to frame the mountain project as an inland counterpart to Fuengirola's promenade, giving residents somewhere to escape the packed beachfront in high season while also supporting broader public health goals around outdoor exercise. Outdoor Infrastructure Underpins Resident Lifestyles For the town's large foreign resident population, and for those in hillside districts such as Torreblanca, projects of this kind matter more than they might first appear. Fuengirola has one of the highest proportions of non-Spanish residents on the coast, many of whom chose the town precisely because it offers a workable balance between beach life and everyday practicality – supermarkets, schools, medical centres and, increasingly, sports facilities within walking distance of home. Buyers looking for a permanent base on the Costa del Sol, rather than a holiday flat used a few weeks a year, increasingly weigh up walkability and access to municipal green space alongside the more obvious factors of price and location. A well-run outdoor sports facility on the doorstep, rather than a half-hour drive away, is the sort of detail that shows up in property viewings and resale value alike. Estate agents across the town, including Marbella New Homes, have noted growing interest from clients asking specifically about proximity to green spaces and outdoor amenities when weighing up hillside developments. Once municipal inspectors formally clear the initial civil works next month, local sports clubs and independent runners will get unrestricted access to the lower platforms. It marks a fairly rare example of a disused industrial site on this stretch of coast being converted into genuinely useful public infrastructure, rather than left to sit behind a fence for another decade. If the later phases arrive on schedule over the winter, Fuengirola will have a hillside amenity that few other towns along the western Costa del Sol can currently match.