Lisbon City Council Discusses Possible Allotment in Former Barros Factory

16 January 2019

The Lisbon City Council is discussing the possibility of approving an allotment on the grounds of the former Barros factory, in the parish of Olivais. The new allotment would comprise 13 lots, including 249 dwellings, with areas for commerce, services and parks.

The request for licensing the allotment, submitted by UPI Parque Oriente – the Portuguese arm of the Union of Partenaires pour l’Investissement (UPI), includes 13 new buildings with a maximum height of 28 meters and a total area of more than 27,000 m2. The land would also include 8,370 m2 of area for services, 5,160 m2 for retail and 2,136 m2 for other facilities.

A two-floor, underground parking lot with 480 private parking spaces and 362 public places is in the proposal, along with 708 meters for public parks. A city councillor, Manuel Salgado (PS), submitted the proposal, which the municipal executive will discuss at a meeting on Thursday.

According to the proposal, the urban planning operation is “subject to the payment of urban planning compensation in cash, due to the lack of a concession to the public domain, and delivery to the municipality is expected as compensation in kind to be deducted from the amount paid, and in the terms of evaluation of the Municipal Direction of Patrimonial Management, of lot 9 destined to collective facilities.” The document does not specify what the collective facilities may be.

The allotment was given an unfavourable opinion by the Department of Mobility and Traffic Management. However, the city councillor’s proposal states that the urbanisation works can resolve perceived problems.

The traffic department’s opinion states that a mobility and transport impact study is required, adding that one of the proposed streets must be altered, making it a two-way street. The department also recommended that the public park must include an entrance from Avenida de Padua.

The former Barros factory, located at the intersection of the avenues Padua and Infante D. Henrique, is subject to a detail plan which the municipality approved in 2008.

As DI previously reported, the former textile factory, next to Parque das Nações and the Cabo Ruivo subway station, was acquired in 2017 by the French company Union de Partenaires pour l’Investissement (UPI), a real estate developer founded in 1994. The firm has a number of rehabilitation projects and luxury buildings around Paris.

Original Story: Lusa / Diário Imobiliário

Translation: Richard Turner