A famous Spanish church is $41 million in debt.
Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia has famously been under construction for more than 100 years — since 1882 to be exact — but it turns out the facility doesn’t have the proper building permits. That means the Unesco world heritage site, designed by renowned architect Antoni Gaudí, has accrued $41 million (£31 million) in fees from lacking the proper permits, according to the New York Times.
On Thursday, officials running the church’s construction agreed to pay city authorities the money over a 10-year period. The funds will go to public transportation to increase access to the tourist attraction and make other improvements in the surrounding neighborhood, BBC reported.
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For years, the board of the Sagrada Familia has maintained that it had a permit issued in 1885 by the independent town of Sant Martí de Provençals, which was absorbed into Barcelona several years later. City officials said that the church then should’ve applied for a Barcelona permit, but the board insisted no one asked for it, according to the Times.
The church — with its famous mix of architectural styles, from Gothic revival to Art Nouveau, from modernism to Asian art — receives 20 million visitors every year, the city’s press release states. Some 4.5 million of them take the time to see the inside of the space.
The Sagrada Familia’s construction will finish in 2026, 100 years after Gaudí’s death.
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