Town Hall of Madrid Reorganises 2,500 Hectares of Land in Valdecarros & Los Cerros into Smaller, More Feasible Areas

16 October 2018 – Inmodiario

The Town Hall of Madrid has agreed to submit to public information the Advance documents detailing two Modifications to the General Plan for four areas belonging to the developments in the south-east: Valdecarros-Cantiles de Manzanares, with a surface area of 1,928 hectares, and Los Cerros-Ensanche de San Fernando, with a surface area of 494 hectares. The main objective of these documents is to adjust urban growth to the real needs of the city, establishing a new framework for the economic, social and environmental feasibility of future developments.

Moreover, the documents prioritise the defence of the general interest of the city in two senses:

They ensure the environmental values of certain areas in the aforementioned zones through the classification of the land.

They increase the economic guarantees and legal commitments of the private management and execution, and they ensure the implementation of facilities, services and infrastructure to the real capacities of the public administrations.

The economic and legal guarantees affect the public and private agents. On the one hand, the capacity of private players to carry out the investment necessary to manage and urbanise and, on the other hand, the public capacity to implement services and amenities.

To streamline the use of the land, a new land classification system has been established for these areas, which allows for their gradual planning and development, in smaller sections. In this way, the urban planning documents program smaller execution units to ensure the production of land for homes, economic activities and amenities in timeframes that match the needs of the city. In this way, the future developments may be adapted to social, economic, technological and environmental changes that evolve in the future, and will avoid the execution of urbanisations and the inappropriate or unnecessary regulation of buildings.

The result of the land reclassification is 2,422 buildable hectares (…).

In total, the potential capacity of the land in Los Cerros and Ensanches de San Fernando decreases by 28.45%, from 14,900 to 10,700 in terms of the number of homes, and by 23.70%, from 570,000 m2 to 440,000 m2 in terms of the buildable surface area for economic activities.

The first development is scheduled for 2022 in the north of the region (….).

Original story: Inmodiario 

Translation: Carmel Drake

Eurofund Gets Green Light for its Retail Macro-Project in Lleida

8 October 2018 – Eje Prime

Eurofund Group has been given the green light for its macro-project in Lleida. Last Friday, the plenary of the Town Hall of Lleida capital approved the commercial development of the Torre Salses project, a retail park complex with a surface area of 56,000 m2. The construction work is expected to begin in the autumn of 2019, according to comments from sources close to the operation speaking to Eje Prime.

The plots on which Torres Salses is going to be built are located between the Magraners and La Bordeta neighbourhoods and “will involve their integration with the city centre”, explained the spokeswoman for the municipal government, Montse Mínguez, recently.

After passing the Town Hall’s filter, Eurofund is now only awaiting the commercial licence to be able to start work on the development of the land. On 21 September, the Informative Committee for Management and Development Policies in the City and Sustainability for the Town Hall of Lleida reported favourably regarding the urban planning process for Torre Salses. It also endorsed both the execution of the widening and extension of the Víctor Torres road and the modification of the urban development order for SUR 42.

The Town Hall approved those files on the understanding that, amongst other aspects, the construction of the complex would strengthen interest in the area for the development of large areas of amenities in the neighbourhoods of La Bordeta and Magraners. Moreover, Eurofund will bear some of the costs of the work to build the roads to access the future retail park complex.

Similarly, the Town Hall trusts that the commercial macro-project will facilitate the development of residential projects, in particular, those dedicated to social housing units. According to the Town Hall of Lleida, Torre Salses will have an economic impact of €362 million on the city.

Owner of Puerto Venecia and Dolce Vita 

Eurofund currently owns more than €3.5 billion in commercial assets, including developed centres and those under construction. The fund manager was founded in 1994 and its first major development was Parc Vallès in Terrassa (Barcelona).

With the new upward economic cycle, the company led by Ian Sandford (pictured above) reactivated its investment in the commercial real estate market with Puerto Venecia, a mega shopping centre spanning 206,000 m2 inaugurated in Zaragoza in 2012.

Original story: Eje Prime (by J. Iquierdo & P. Riaño)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Duro Felguera Sells 2 Madrid Office Buildings to Signal Capital

14 March 2018 – Property Funds World

Signal Capital Partners has completed the acquisition of two office buildings in Madrid from Duro Felguera. Optimus Global Investors acted as sole advisor instructed by the vendor.

The largest building is the corporate headquarters of Duro Felguera in Madrid, which is located at Via de los Poblados 7, in the consolidated Campo de las Naciones Business Park. The freestanding office building comprises an area of almost 14,000 sqm GLA, set over five floors, as well as two basements with 228 car parking spaces. Duro Felguera has entered into a new lease over part of this building.

The Campo de las Naciones office market is considered to be one of Madrid’s most established and attractive office markets outside the CBD, strategically located midway between the Barajas airport and the CBD and near Madrid’s exhibition centre. The building benefits from both high visibility from the main ring road (M-40) and large open plan floor layouts. It is also next to the Cristalia Business Park, comprising almost 100,000 sqm of office accommodation, a modern hotel and amenities such as a nursery and several restaurants.

The second property is a vacant office building located at Calle Jacinto Benavente 4 in Las Rozas, Madrid. That property comprises an area of 2,600 sqm GLA, set over three floors and with 133 car parking places. The property, next to Tripark, is located in the Las Rozas Business Park, a consolidated office area in the northwest of Madrid in which well-known multinationals such as HP, Bankia, Oracle, Día, Santander, Adidas, ING and Triodos, amongst others, are located. It has a high occupancy rate, is easily accessible by car from the main highways of Madrid (A-6, M-40 and M-50) and enjoys amenities such as restaurants, gyms, shopping centres (Las Rozas Village and Heron City) and leisure activities.

Kris Van Lancker, Managing Director at Optimus Global Investors, says: “This has been one of the most complex transactions in which Optimus has successfully advised. The difficulty lay in finding the fine balance between the financial and office space needs of Duro Felguera in the scope of its global refinancing program and the investment requirements of Signal Capital Partners. It allows Duro Felguera to divest its non-strategic assets and at the same time helps Signal meet its risk-adjusted return targets.”

Original story: Property Funds World

Edited by: Carmel Drake

Valdebebas: Supreme Court Ruling Undermines Construction Plans

28 March 2016 – El Confidencial

Madrid’s High Court of Justice (TSJM) has dealt another fatal blow to the PAU real estate developments of Ciudad Aeroportuaria and Parque Valdebebas, the area in the north of the capital, where around 12,000 homes are expected to be built. According to a ruling on 4 March, the Administrative Litigation Division has partially accepted the appeal filed by the Association for Responsible Urban Development and has declared null and void the Special Land Sub-division Plan.

The decision by the First Section of the TSJM’s Administrative Litigation Division, chaired by Francisco Javier Canabal, overthrows the approval agreed by the Town Hall of Madrid on 30 October 2014, which modified the detailed plan APE 16.11 for the Ciudad Aeroportuaria and Parque Valdebebas. Although the Town Hall, now chaired by Manuela Carmena, the Community of Madrid, led by Cristina Cifuentes, and the Valdebebas Compensation Board called for the dismissal of the appeal presented in February 2015, the fact is that the ruling calls into question the urban development once again even though it had already been approved by the various administrations.

The plaintiffs allege that the Special Plan, dated 30 October 2014, modified the buildability of the area to include a large shopping centre in the development, with the allocation of space amounting to 145,794 m2 and an annex to it, measuring 36,488 m2 for other tertiary use. The Court emphasised that the Association “was right” when it said that this plan “modifies the structural organisation”, since land transformation operations inherently require an appropriate relationship between public space and collective amenities, and population density. (…).

The Town Hall and Community of Madrid must now decide whether to submit an appeal against this decision, a position that is difficult to adopt given that the new heads of Ahora Madrid and the PP in the aforementioned institutions have inherited a lawsuit fought by their predecessors, Ana Botella and Ignacio González. Moreover, they should take into account that in May the resolution is expected of a previous appeal against improprieties conducted by the Town Hall of Madrid, with the correction of the General Urban Plan (PGOU) approved in August 2013, an emergency action through which the Town Hall corrected the legality of Valdebebas, which had been suspended months earlier, following a ruling issued by the Supreme Court in September 2012.

Pryconsa, in question

But, the factor that calls everything into question, above all, are the plans of Pryconsa, which in December 2015, purchased 14 plots of land from the Valdebebas Compensation Board for €56.7 million. It acquired 92,000 m2 of buildable land, where it plans to build between 900 and 1,000 social housing properties (VPPL). Pryconsa paid just over approximately €600/m2 for the land, a price that is significantly below the €800/m2 that the Compensation Board obtained for one of the VPPL plots that it put up for auction after the summer and which was sold to the cooperative Esta Gestión 100, backed by the architect Enrique Toboada.

That operation ate up the last residential land assets owned by the Compensation Board and practically used up all of the land allocated to social housing in this urban development, given that now less than 5,000 m2 of land remains available. Moreover, following the transaction, only one third of the residential land is available in this area. The plots awarded are located next to one of the main squares in the new neighbourhood, close to the future shopping centre and JOYFE school, whose land also formed part of the assets sold by the Compensation Board, and where construction work is expected to begin soon.

Following the TSJM’s decision, all of these plans have been thrown back up in the air, a real setback for the developers that have bought land in this area of Madrid, located to the south of La Moraleja neighbourhood and to the north of the IFEMA exhibition grounds.

Original story: El Confidencial (by Agustín Marco)

Translation: Carmel Drake