Sana Asks to Stretch Its Graça Barracks Hotel Deal to 75 Years and Delay Rent Until 2030

The hotel group behind the long-stalled conversion of a former Lisbon barracks into a five-star hotel is asking the state for markedly softer terms: a concession stretched from 50 to 75 years, and permission to hold off paying rent until March 2030. The requests, reported by Público, are the latest twist in the troubled story of the Quartel da Graça (Graça Barracks), a state-owned heritage site that Sana won the right to develop more than six years ago and has yet to turn into a working hotel.

The Graça Barracks, originally the old Graça Convent (Convento da Graça) in the hilltop neighbourhood that shares its name, is one of the properties offered to private operators under the government's Revive programme (Programa Revive), which leases run-down public heritage for tourism use. Sana was announced as the winner in 2019 and signed a concession that December: a 50-year lease, an annual payment of €1.79 million — well above the minimum asked — and a commitment to invest some €30 million in a 120-room hotel that was meant to open by late 2022.

None of that has gone to plan. The project fell into default at the end of 2023, having missed its construction and opening deadlines, and for years the building sat abandoned and deteriorating. Work only began in March this year, after Lisbon City Council (Câmara Municipal de Lisboa) issued the building permit. In the meantime, the amounts Sana owes have piled up: on a cumulative basis they now exceed €4 million, and neither the government nor Estamo, the state company that manages the property, has clarified whether any of the contracted rent has actually been paid.

Sana's new demands go further than a simple extension. By pushing the start of rent payments to 2030 and lengthening the concession to three-quarters of a century, the group is effectively asking the state to absorb the cost of the delays and to rebalance a contract it says has become financially unsustainable. The requests sit with Estamo, which is reviewing an earlier revision petition; while that review is under way, Sana's contractual obligations are suspended, so it is currently paying nothing.

The government has said little beyond confirming that it has commissioned a specialist legal opinion, citing the complexity of the matter, and that its overriding aim is to protect the public interest and secure a proper return on state assets. It has not indicated whether it might levy penalties or move to take the property back. Sana, part of the Portuguese group Azinor, runs 18 hotels across Portugal and abroad and leads the Lisbon market; the Graça project would add a prominent address to that portfolio.

Opposition to the scheme has hardened. The Left Bloc (Bloco de Esquerda) has called for the contract to be torn up, and it and Livre filed motions at the city council — rejected by the council — seeking to return the barracks to the state. A public petition demanding the concession be revoked has gathered more than 1,500 signatures, and local critics point to four hotels planned for a parish of roughly 10,000 residents as evidence of over-tourism. The saga has been building for months, having first surfaced in our coverage of the back-rent standoff in June; the question now is how much more the state is willing to concede to see the doors finally open.