Mark Stucklin
‘Mr. Drains’ abandons Spain for Africa
Seseña
Spanish developer Francisco Hernando, better known as ‘El Pocero’, or ‘Mr. Drains’, is abandoning all building work on his macro-urbanisation in Seseña, not far from Madrid, and heading off to build homes in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea, one of the least developed, and most corrupt countries in Africa.
El Pocero is the developer behind the massive ‘Residencial Francisco Hernando’ urbanisation (named after himself, of course) in Seseña, a dormitory town some 40 kilometres south of Madrid. He planned to build a mini-city in Seseña for families driven out of Madrid by high prices and a shortage of family-friendly housing. Now the market has collapsed high prices in Madrid are less of a problem.
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El Pocero leaves Seseña only half built. Of the 13,500 homes that were planned, just 5,000 have been finished, of which only 3,000 were sold, mainly to speculative investors, and 2,000 handed over to creditor banks to pay off debts. With hardly any residents, the urbanisation looks like a ghost town. El Pocero says he will return to finish building Seseña when the market picks up.
Along with Marina D’Or, Seseña is an icon for everything that went wrong in the Spanish property boom. Vast, ugly, souless, and utterly devoid of charm, mired in town planning corruption scandals and driven by speculation.
Turning to the future, ‘Mr. Drains’ plans to build 36,000 homes in Equatorial Guinea.