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Another auction for Porta Vittoria. The ghost area is on sale
25 March, Il Giornale
In the city where construction is thriving, and skyscrapers are rising everywhere, the biggest and most central real estate operation is stuck and lacking an owner. We don’t know how long the area will stay in this state. This is the story of Porta Vittoria, hit by the bankruptcy of his developer Danilo Coppola. Last December the auction organized to find a buyer for the area ended up getting no offers. Now the curators are trying again, with a price heavily discounted and hoping that somebody will show up. But it’s not granted things will be better this time.
The new bid notice was published yesterday on the website of the Court of Milan as decided by the delegate judge Armina Simoneti and by the three curators working on the Coppola bankruptcy. In December, the lot was put for sale at a starting price of 152 million euro. This is already a very convenient price considering that it includes also the big hotel on Via Cena, whose construction is finished and only needs the be connected to the utilities, and 150 luxury apartments, also ready. The curators hoped till the last minute that somebody would have made an offer. There was some preliminary action. The most relevant came from Davide Bizzi, the developer of “Milano Sesto”, currently implementing a mega operation in the Falck area in Sesto San Giovanni. In the end, neither Bizzi nor the others made an official offer.
The news was very discouraging for the people living in the area, having to live close to the area left in a state of abandon and degrade, extending till Viale Molise. Now the curators are giving another try, with the lot on sale: only 120 million to get it, more than 20% discount on the price of three months ago. Will the discount be enough to get some interest?
When asked, Davide Bizzi says to be out of the game for the moment and that Porta Vittoria is not in his plans. There are no candidates, so far. The new deadline is set for 3rd May and risks to pass without getting any offers.
The reasons for this caution are many. There are worries that Coppola’s legal issues (recently condemned to a 7-year detention for bankruptcy) might reflect on the operation and penalize it. There are also the claims from the Municipality, requiring to the potential investor to reclaim the whole area and build a sports centre, certainly not incentivising offers. As a result, everything stays still: hotel, apartments, weeds and projects.
Source: Il Giornale
Translator: Cristina Ambrosi