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19 April 2018 – Cinco Días
The first logistics megahub in Spain is starting to become a reality almost a decade after it was initially proposed. The entity known as Megahub Andalucía – a public-private initiative – has engaged the consultancy firm CBRE to search for the first major operators ahead of the imminent authorisation of the project that the Junta de Andalucía is expected to grant in June. At stake is €350 million of investment in an industrial hub for the south of Spain and north of Africa, which should be ready by 2019.
Megahub Andalucía is located in the municipality of Antequera (Málaga), in what the European Union calls a multi-modal hub, given that the European Atlantic and Mediterranean railway and road goods corridors meet at this point, the ports of Algeciras, Málaga and Sevilla are all close by, as is the AVE station in Antequera and the airport of Málaga (the fourth largest for cargo transport in Spain).
“Megahub Andalucía is located in the centre of Andalucía with respect to the large populations, both in terms of consumption and production”, says Ramón Vázquez, head of the project at CBRE. The word hub is used because several European transport networks converge on this point and the pre-fix mega has been added, in turn, because the warehouses that are going to be constructed on the plots will extend up to 200,000 m2.
The Junta de Andalucía holds a 40% stake in the company, through Red Logística de Andalucía, and the remaining 60% is held by a private company Puerto Seco de Antequera, which comprises, in turn, several companies, most notably Acotral, a local operator that has been an integrated supplier of Mercadona since 2003.
The Junta is expected to approve the special plan in June, which will allow work to start of the urbanisation of the area, after many years of delays. “The project was launched 10 years ago but has been delayed on several occasions due to urban development problems and due to the crisis. It was conceived as a logistics area and is now being reborn as a logistics megahub”, says the expert at CBRE.
The urbanisation work may begin in June and will have an estimated cost of €70 million, which will be funded by the Junta and the company Puerto Seco de Antequera. Later, around €280 million of funding will be received from investors and operators to build the macro logistics warehouses and production centres. In theory, the megahub should be operational by the end of 2019 or beginning of 2020.
The logistics hub in Antequera spans 3.3 million m2, of which 1.03 million m2 is going to correspond to logistics warehouses. There will also be an industrial park, destined to production activities, measuring 919,000 m2, plus a service centre (comprising a hotel, restaurant, training centre, businesses…) spanning 317,000 m2 and finally a railway terminal, which will connect with the goods station in Bobadilla (owned by Adif).
The project coincides with the huge boom that the logistics market is sparking in Spain, due to the reactivation of the economy, the pull from e-commerce and the needs of the major operators such as Amazon. Last year, more than 1.5 million m2 of logistics space was leased, according to data from CBRE, up by almost 20% (…).
Original story: Cinco Días (by Alfonso Simón Ruiz)
Translation: Carmel Drake