Adif Hands Over the Castellana Plot to El Corte Inglés Paying €136 Mn

26/11/2014 – E Pais, El Mundo

El Corte Inglés ponders next extension of what it considers its flagship department store in Spain due to its excellent location on the coveted Paseo de la Castellana street in Madrid’s downtown. The chain has acquired a plot situated just in front of its existing store and at few meters from the Nuevos Ministerios light railway and subway station from Adif for more than €136 million.

The piece of land has 13.000 square meters and it is located inside the Azca complex. Adif, a public company managing railway infrastructure in Spain, put the parcel up for sale in September at an asking price of €40 million. It received six offers for the lot, from such known developers and co-ops managers as Monthisa, Allegra, Capriles, Colonial or Grupo Villar Mir.

Newly named president of El Corte Inglés Dimas Gimeno said ‘town planning project for the terrain displays a total buildability of 35.192 square meters, of which 10.176 square meters are intended for construction of three stories above the ground level, of the tertiary use (i.e. commerce, services but no dwellings), and around 25.000 square meters below the ground level which can be used for building four underground parkings’.

The El Corte Inglés store has been growing throughout years. Opened in 1969 with less than 50.000 square meters, it was amplified by a new building, which replaced the old Windsor, in 2011. Currently, it has a 130.000 square meter floor area.

Thanks to the purchase and the planned extension, the Castellana store will become the biggest in Spain. Right now the honour belongs to the center in the El Bercial neighbourhood in Getafe which covers 180.000  square meters. In any way, it will be much smaller than other departments stores said to be largest in the world and even in Spain, as the Marineda City retail park in A Coruña offers a 500.000 square meter built area and a GLA of 200.000 square meters.

This acquisition adds to the latest three November land purchases in the center of the Spanish capital amounting to €370 million in total.

Two other plots, curiously enough situated in the same area, were tendered publicly earlier this month and fell into hands of cooperatives managers Domo Gestora and Grupo Ibosa. First piece of land, situated at 50 Raimundo Fernandez Villaverde street, was bought for €111.05 million on the 5th. A week later, the other carrying Madrid Metro’s depots in the Cuatro Caminos zone was sold for €88.3 million. Finally, Pryconsa acquired the old Buñuel studio of Spanish TV RTVE for €35.27 million.

Original article: El País (by Cristina Delgado), El Mundo (by Jorge Salido Cobo)

Translation: AURA REE

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