Necochea's casino goes under the hammer, again

The Complejo Casino of Necochea will go under the hammer today, this time, for real. Previous attempts to transfer the property collapsed under court injunctions, failed tenders and political gridlock. 

Now, with a single bidder registered and a Mar del Plata appellate court having cleared the last legal obstacle two weeks ago, the municipality is moving forward with an auction that local officials are calling a turning point for the city's waterfront.

A Toda Vela Mar, which includes Casinos Victoria alongside businesspeople with stakes in the real estate and automotive sectors in Necochea and Balcarce respectively, is the only group bidding to win it. Under auction rules, the firm must formally ratify its bid on the day of the hearing before the gavel falls. Until that ratification is complete, the transfer is not guaranteed. 

The floor price of ARS4.9bn ($3.4m) was established by independent appraisers from the Banco de la Provincia de Buenos Aires and represents the minimum the municipality will accept for the set of parcels that front Avenida 2, between calles 4 and 91, directly on the coastal strip.

The road to this auction has been anything but straightforward. The Complejo Casino was inaugurated in February 1973 by Lotería Nacional, designed with a futurist aesthetic intended to anchor Necochea's position in the Atlantic tourism circuit. For years, it delivered on that promise, combining gaming rooms, a theater, bowling lanes, pools, commercial spaces, restaurants and cultural venues under one roof. The decline began with chronic underinvestment and was accelerated by a series of fires that damaged critical sections of the structure. 

A landmark complex's long decline

By the 1990s, the complex had passed from the national lottery authority to the Province of Buenos Aires and then to the municipality, arriving at local hands already burdened by structural problems and a history of failed recovery attempts.

For the better part of three decades, successive municipal administrations tried and failed to find a workable formula. Concession schemes, private initiative proposals and public tenders came and went without producing a viable outcome. The physical condition of the complex deteriorated further with each cycle, and the property became a recurring subject of local political debate without resolution.

Legal battles clear the way for sale

The process cleared its first formal hurdle when the Concejo Deliberante authorized the auction and established specific urban planning conditions that any future project on the site would have to meet. A public sale was subsequently scheduled for February this year. 

However, the auction was suspended after a citizen, María Susana Laborde, obtained a precautionary injunction through a public-interest lawsuit, halting the procedure because the sale lacked proper legal standing. The municipality challenged the injunction and filed an appeal.

On May 28, the Mar del Plata Administrative Appeals Court revoked the injunction, finding no manifest illegality that would justify keeping the process frozen. Crucially, however, the court specified that the underlying case remains open: the judicial debate over the complex's future has not been definitively resolved, and the possibility of further legal challenges cannot be excluded.

Arturo Rojas, Necochea’s Mayor, said: "We are hours away from, God willing, everything going well. This could be a before and after for our district." Speaking on a local radio program, he also acknowledged that the court delay had introduced real uncertainty into the process. He added: "The court finally confirmed that we had acted within the law, but the lost time created uncertainty and could even have led the investor to withdraw."

The future is now, again

No definitive development project has been approved for the site. Preliminary renders circulated in recent months showing mixed-use residential and urban development proposals, but any transformation of that scale depends on further administrative approvals and urban planning determinations. 

Rojas was direct on the timeline: "This won't be resolved overnight. There will need to be renovations, new activities, investments and urban development. But the important thing is that a new stage is beginning."

Wednesday's auction marks a turning point for the casino complex, opening the door to the transfer of a significant portion of the site into private hands for the first time since its inauguration. The sale still requires ratification by bidder A Toda Vela Mar, which must also define its plans for the property, but the process signals a major shift in the future of one of Argentina's most historic casino assets.