• Transaction / Assets
    Opus Dei Sells Entire City Block in Marvila, Lisbon
  • Seller
    Fundação Maria António Barreiros
  • Buyer
    Refletecarismas
  • € MM
    17

Maria António Barreiros Foundation (Opus Dei) Sells City Block in Marvila, Lisbon

31 December 2018

The Maria António Barreiros Foundation sold the well-known city block in the historic area of ​​Marvila, in Lisbon, to Refletecarismas, SA, for 17 million euros.

The block comprises the area between Praça David Leandro da Silva, which is also the location of the former Abel Pereira da Fonseca Warehouses and the headquarters of the Clube Oriental (COL), and Rua Fernando Palha and Rua Zófimo Pedroso, with an approved above-ground construction area 16.160m2.

The acquiring company has three Portuguese partners linked to the real estate and tourism sectors and a fund based in Switzerland. Details of the fate of this large and central area in eastern Lisbon are not yet known, but the company awarded the architectural project to Frederico Valsassina’s atelier.

Onara/Predirumo intermediated the transaction, bringing together the appropriate buyers for a project of such extent and visibility. The Maria António Barreiros Foundation also owns another city block, next to the one just sold. That property is delimited by Rua da Fábrica do Material da Guerra, Rua Fernando Palha and Rua Amorim, in an area with an above-ground building capacity of 14,110 m2.

Since its creation, the Maria Antónia Barreiros Foundation has been closely linked to Opus Dei, a wealthy, conservative Catholic organisation that was and founded on October 2, 1928, by Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, a Spanish priest who was canonized in 2002. The non-profit Portuguese foundation was funded in 1986 through a bequest by its benefactor (Dona Maria Antónia Barreiro).

Maria Antónia Barreiros, the only daughter of Acácio and Maria Beatriz Domingos Barreiro, Galicians, was divorced and had no descendants. Ms Barreiros, along with her father and mother, were important benefactors of the Santa Casa da Misericórdia in Lisbon in the 1950’s, an institution which funded a biography of the Domingos Barreiro family, “a clan of Galician origin that settled in the Portuguese capital in the second half of the 19th-century, and which had a unique history of entrepreneurship, success and fortune over the course of just a few decades.” Acácio Domingos Barreiro created the Sociedade Comercial José Domingos Barreiro Limited and was one of the important people connected to Banco Português do Atlântico.

The Maria António Barreiros Foundation’s financial statements for 2015 list at least 83 properties, spread throughout Lisbon, in the parishes of S. Sebastião da Pedreira, Penha de França, Olivais, S. Domingos de Benfica and Campo Grande.

An area of the city undergoing a transformation

Situated very close to the Tagus riverside, the new development will help gentrify an area that was once known for its warehouses (mainly agricultural and wine). These days, it is gaining renewed charm due to the creative rehabilitation of many spaces and the emergence of high-quality architectural and urban projects. Such developments include the Living Prata, designed by the architect Renzo Piano, the former Tabaqueira building, developed by Zaphira and designed by the Portuguese atelier CPU in partnership with Italian Best, and the project which is expected to arise on the lands of the former Matinha Gas factory, located at the beginning of the Parque das Nações.

Original Story: Diário Imobiliário

Translation: Richard Turner