Hopes of seeing the once proud Berengaria Hotel revived to its former glory have gone up in smoke as efforts by Bank of Cyprus to offload the property through a bidding process has failed spectacularly.
According to a BoC official, the property attracted zero interest with not a single bid being submitted.
Disappointed by the development, the BoC official said that the bank has no Plan B for what to do with the mountain resort property.
“The Bank will examine its options and decide on what the following steps might be,” the official Financial Mirror.
BoC had attempted to auction the big-ticket property in September but failed to spark interest from investors willing to pay the reserve price of EUR 2.36 mln.
Due to this failure, in December the bank decided to sell the property to the highest bidder, through a bidding process with interested parties requested to submit a written offer by 14 January.
Bank of Cyprus said no offers came in for the derelict property which will now go into cold storage.
It seems the hotel’s history was not enough to attract the cash as real estate experts fear that demand for such properties just isn’t there due to hidden costs.
“When it comes to such properties, the investor has two options if he chooses to bid for it. One is to knock it down and build something new, and the other is to renovate it and reinstate it as a classic mountain-style resort. Both options are extremely costly and risky,” property expert George Mouskides told the Financial Mirror recently.
He said that opting to renovate the Berengaria hotel would be a very risky business.
“Buying such properties at auction, the investor is not aware of hidden costs. These costs can only be revealed with studies and research, which an investor would need time and permission from the current owner to work on the premises,” he said.
Once the most luxurious hotel in Cyprus, it was named in honour of Queen Berengaria, wife of Richard the Lionheart, whom were married in Limassol in 1191.
The once-famous Berengaria covers an area of 26,520 sq.m. with the building itself covering 4,980 sq.m.
The stone-built mountain hotel opened in 1931 and closed in 1984, its rooms and halls that once entertained royalty are now home to dust, graffiti and exposed to the elements.
Having withstood the passage of time, the Berengaria has now become an unofficial and a rather dangerous tourist attraction with its share of myths and ghost stories surrounding it.
There are plenty of ghoulish stories to choose from; A former manager who killed himself is said to wander the empty halls in search of new victims, a merchant’s wife supposedly found dead in the swimming pool seeks revenge and a fair maiden dressed in white linen is said to be visible only during dusk leaning against one of the windows.
It is estimated that some 200 tourists a week visit the hotel – situated at an altitude of 1,400 meters – attracted by the building’s architecture and macabre history.
