The newspaper Reforma has published photos of the half-built tourist attraction in the Yucatán jungle, now abandoned and covered with weeds.
More than MX$90 million was spent on the Mayan Palace (Palacio Maya), which was supposed to be the first piece of what the government called a “Mayan Disneyland.” The construction, which began with its first stone being set on Dec. 21, 2009, was abandoned completely in 2012.
According to former governor Ivonne Ortega, the first investment would have been enough for the construction to progress in more than 50 percent, but according to Reforma, the 13 thousand square meters of land have been abandoned and are being taken over by undergrowth.
It was last May that the construction company Ingeniería y Desarrollo Inmobiliario de México left the project in the hands of the Yucatan’s culture and tourism patronage, Patronato de las Unidades de Servicios Culturales y Turísticos.
The Mayan Palace was part of a development of hotels, golf courses and even an amusement park, adjacent to the natural well Albán.
“We’re going to have a Disneyland but with culture,” then-Gov. Ortega is on the record as saying.
“They let the idea die,” said INAH anthropologist Iván Franco. “They ended up putting all efforts on the Museum of Mérida and turned it into a white elephant even before it was born.”
Franco had criticized the project since the beginning since he knew the resources needed to build and maintain the Mayan Civilization Palace would be exorbitant.
Source: Latin Times
