Tag: Caixa Catalunya

Land at the Former San Jorge Paper Mill is being Advertised for 20 Times Less than the PAI’s Initial Appraisal Value

13 November 2018 – Levante EMV

“Second-hand urban land with a surface area of 10,893 m2 and a buildability of 5,514 m2. Located on the outskirts of Xàtiva, in a quiet area”. That advert has been circulating for months on several real estate websites for  a portion of the land where the historical San Jorge Paper Mill used to be located – a dismantled factory complex and a symbol of the former industrial splendour of the city and, until the middle of the 20th century, one of the most important emporiums in the country.

With the crisis, the plot for sale, which is residential in nature, became part of the portfolio of Banco Sabadell’s real estate division, although a promotion is marketing it for just €65,600: equivalent to €8/m2. The amount has decreased by 47% since the asset was transferred. After its reclassification 13 years ago, the plots were appraised at a price twenty times higher, at €170/m2, a figure that is closer to the current market average. A few metres away, on the industrial estate, commercial and industrial use plots half the size are being sold for €1.5 million.

The different buildings that used to make up the San Jorge Paper Mill occupy two urban plots that, according to the cadastral records, span 65,000 m2. The largest, measuring 54,000 m2, was seized and adjudicated by the court in 2017 to Sareb, the bad bank created to absorb the toxic real estate assets. The property no longer appears in the entity’s public catalogue in Xàtiva.

At the height of the real estate boom, a company administered by a former colleague of Alfonso Rus in the PP, condemned for fraud, managed to persuade the department run by the now imprisoned Rafael Blasco to reclassify 73,000 m2 of land in the factory complex from industrial to residential for the construction of 310 homes. That operation revalued the land by €10 million: Caixa Catalunya appraised the land at €12.4 million and signed a mortgage loan amounting to €6.1 million with the property developer of the PAI, which had previously purchased the land for just €2.4 million.

In the process of being protected

The municipal government of Xàtiva has definitively buried the failed urban planning progress during this legislature. Nevertheless, for the time being,  the Town Hall’s plans do not include the option of following in the footsteps of the former convent of Santa Clara and acquiring the land of the paper mill, founded in 1932 by Gregorio Molina. Municipal sources emphasise that the land of the former industrial company is still considered to be for “undeveloped low-density residential” use, although there is no intention to develop any project on the site for now.

The Paper Mill, which is in the process of being declared an Asset of Local Importance and of having its protection status expanded, is home to the largest brick chimney in the Community of Valencia, as well as a mill and a light factory. Its warehouses, gadgets and other components of industrial heritage were going to be demolished by the property developer of the former PAI. The land for sale also served as a paintball battlefield a few years ago (…).

Original story: Levante EMV (by S. Gómez)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Half Of Cruzcampo’s Former Site In Sevilla Goes Up For Sale

13 June 2016 – Andalucía Información

Investors and governments alike are trying to take advantage of the improvement in the economic environment to reactivate the real estate market in Sevilla. Whilst on Thursday, the Town Planning department put 19 plots of land in Sevilla, on which 1,440 homes may be built, up for forced sale through public auction, now comes the mandate for the confidential sale of half of the urban development rights over the large site of the former Cruzcampo factory, where the PGOU has authorised the construction of 1,963 homes, in addition to tertiary uses.

The site of the historical brewery on Avenida de Andalucía had gone from being a star project to a failing project. The Basque real estate company Urvasco, which acquired the plot during the golden years of the real estate boom, commissioned the design of a “high standing” neighbourhood to four of the star-architects at the time: Norman Foster, Jean Nouvel, Arata Isozaki and Guillermo Vázquez Consuegra, who…even had their photo taken together with Monteserín, the then mayor, on the balcony of the Town Hall, in 2006. At the time, sourcecs spoke about an investment of €750 million in the construction of a luxury neighbourhood that was going to boast a high category hotel with around 150 rooms.

Nevertheless, with the burst of the (real estate) bubble just two years later, the project ended up foundering, along with its developer, Urvasco, which was unable to meet its obligations with the banks that had lent it €330 million and so it had to hand over the land to a pool of financial entities and companies linked to them (around a dozen in total).

The ‘Compañía para los Desarrollos Inmobiliarios de la Ciudad de Híspalis’ is the owner of half of the urban development rights of this land (49.91% to be exact). The Company was constituted by Banco Popular, CajaSur, Caja Granada, Caja España, Caixa Catalunya, Cajastur, Caja Laboral, Bancaja and Caja de Ahorros de Extremadura.

This company, which had accumulated debt amounting to €294 million and losses of €200 million, filed for voluntary bankruptcy in January 2016 in the Commercial Court of Madrid, and its application was approved on 22 February. However, that has not represented an obstacle to the process to sell its urban development rights, entrusted to an intermediary company, which is looking for potential investors in a restricted process that will run until Friday (17 June), the deadline for the acceptance of offers.

The sales brochure highlights that the plot has a surface area of 18,286 sqm and is located just 400m from El Corte Inglés on Nervión Plaza (presented as the main shopping centre in Sevilla), as well as from Sevilla F.C.’s stadium and the Santa Justa train station.

The Interior Reform Plan definitively approved the development of 1,963 homes, of which 890 will be allocated for social housing, as part of a total constructible area for residential use of 225,823 sqm, as well as a further 29,345 sqm for tertiary use. Therefore, the gross buildable area amounts to 255,168 sqm.

All of this will be constructed on wide blocks located in the Southern area of the plot. The Northern section will be a green area covering more than 70,000 sqm. According to the sales brochure, “the proposed plans seeks to achieve a maximum liberation of space, of around 35% in total, for the enjoyment of citizens. To achieve this, the plans propose the construction of tall buildings, which in the case of the residential units will be 15-storeys high”.

Original story: Andalucía Información (by M. J. Florencino)

Translation: Carmel Drake