Tag: conversion

Iberia’s Former HQ in Barcelona is Being Converted into Luxury Apartments Costing c. €15,000/m2

4 April 2019 – El Confidencial

The fund Twin Peaks Capital is on a mission to convert Iberia’s former offices in Barcelona into 21 super luxury homes. The prices of the new properties at number 30 Paseo de Gracia are expected to go on the market for between €11,000/m2 and €15,000/m2. The penthouse might even fetch €19,000/m2, breaking all previous records in the Catalan capital and even higher than the most expensive prices in Madrid.

Twin Peaks Capital purchased the neoclassic style building from the former Agrupació Mútua in 2017 for €25 million. The property spans a surface area of almost 4,000 m2 distributed over five storeys, plus an attic, and the future homes will measure between 80 m2 and 270 m2, with first-rate finishes, plus common areas with terraces and a stunning swimming pool on the roof.

The properties will be marketed by BNP Paribas Real Estate and 25% of the development has already been sold, mostly to Catalan buyers and investors. The homes are expected to be ready during the second quarter of 2020.

Original story: El Confidencial (by E. Sanz)

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

Pelayo Capital to Create a New Breogán Park with an Investment of >€60M

15 January 2019 – Eje Prime

Pelayo Capital is throwing itself into the Spanish retail sector during its second year of life. The Galician family office, which is currently working on the conversion of the Dolce Vita shopping centre in A Coruña into a retail park, is planning to replicate the project in other Spanish cities with an investment of more than €90 million, according to Íñigo Veiga, CEO of the company, speaking to EjePrime.

Similarly, the group wants to add high street stores to its portfolio of assets during the course of this year. In this sense, Pelayo Capital is on the hunt for properties located in Madrid, Galicia and Asturias, in particular, in which it plans to invest at least €1 million. “We are not ruling out other cities either, given that our strategy involves working hand in hand with retailers”, said the director.

Breogán Park is the company’s star project, an asset in which the company is going to invest €60 million and which will be inaugurated in the spring of 2021. It is the first project undertaken in Spain to involve the demolition and conversion of a shopping centre into a retail park. “The initiative that takes advantage of the demand for these types of assets in many cities around the country”, said the executive.

The surface area, spanning 45,000 m2, will have 2,500 parking spaces and used to house the Dolce Vita shopping complex until 2014. “It is a great opportunity to build a retail park in A Coruña; we are not going to find any others because there is no land available in the city on which to build a retail park of this size”, explained Veiga.

Pelayo Capital is looking for ways to handle the maturity of shopping centres and the boom in e-commerce in Spain by committing itself to retail parks and commercial premises located on the most prime streets. For this reason, the company has just purchased its first asset at number 103 Calle Hermosilla in Madrid, revealed the director.

“We do not have an investment objective or commitment, because we believe that pressure can lead to errors”, explained Veiga. Saddled between Galicia and Madrid, Pelayo Capital has the support of investors with different profiles and is not averse to the idea of backing the logistics or residential markets in the long term.

The company was created in 2017 hand in hand with Breogán Park, a project that launched it into the midst of the Spanish real estate sector. Although it is also working on the rehabilitation of a residential building in A Coruña, Pelayo Capital has placed its focus on retail and for that reason, it has hired Luis Íñiguez, former director of JLL’s retail division in Spain, as senior advisor to the company.

Original story: Eje Prime (by Berta Seijo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Mango Sells its Store on c/Corrida in Gijón & Leases it Back for €30,000/Month

28 October 2018 – El Comercio

Mango has sold the building located at number 28 Calle Corrida, in Gijón, which has housed its megastore in the city since 2015, to a domestic investor for €8 million. The Catalan multi-national textile firm acquired the iconic property, which used to house the former headquarters of Banesto, in 2014. At the time, it paid Banco Santander €6.2 million for the property. The building work for the commercial conversion of the building, which spans a surface area of 1,642 m2, spread over the ground first and attic floor, cost another almost €2 million.

On this occasion, the sale operation has been undertaken as a sale&leaseback deal (…). In other words, Mango has sold the asset on the city’s main high street but will remain there as the tenant, paying a sizeable rent to the new owner: more than €30,000 per month (…).

That is not the only change happening on Calle Corrida over the coming months. The Inditex Group is looking to relocate some of its brands onto the Golden Mile of Gijón despite the shortage of available units (…).

In terms of prices, according to Alejandro López, lawyer and director of the real estate consultancy firm Noxtrum Novotec, “the average rental price is €62/m2/month, with variations ranging from €50/m2/month to €70/m2/month”.

Original story: El Comercio (by M. Moro)

Translation: Carmel Drake

A Businessman from Benalmádena Buys the Military Government Building for €4.5M

18 October 2018 – Diario Sur

The former Military Government building, located at number 6 Paseo de la Farola, no longer belongs to the Ministry of Defence. On 24 September, the deed of sale was signed before a notary whereby this property, constructed in the 1950s and in disuse since the early 1990s, will pass into the hands of a company linked to the Benalmádena-based businessman Antonio González, owner of the 5-star Vincci Aleysa hotel and the Don Gustavo tourist apartments. The Ministry of Defence put the building up for auction for €5 million last year but did not receive any bids for it in the first or second rounds. As such, the lot was opened up to the option of being acquired directly by any interested party at the asking price established in the second round of the auction, and that is what happened in the end.

The property has been purchased for €4,538,987 by the aforementioned businessman behind the Hotel Aleysa in Benalmádena, who has still not explained what he is going to use the building for (…). The property spans a surface area of 2,438 m2, distributed over four floors (the ground and first  floors measure 631.12 m2 each; the second floor spans 597.11 m2 and the third floor measures 202.66 m2) and stands on a plot measuring 1,063 m2, which is classified as for community use, which means that it cannot be used for residential, hotel, commercial or office purposes, unless a modification of the urban development plans can be carried out to modify the use of the plot.

Sources close to the new owner of the property (….) indicate that it is very possible that the building will be renovated and turned into a high-end nursing home for the elderly, in the form of sheltered housing with the corresponding medical and social support. “We think that this is a very good location for that”, said the sources, who admitted that this option would avoid the need to undergo any urban development processes, which could take at least a year and which would force the businessmen to establish some kind of economic or land compensation for the loss of a community space for the city. Another option could be to dedicate the property for use as a private clinic relating to the world of aesthetics and wellbeing, in which other businessmen are also interested.

Plans

In any case, the intention of the new owner of the Military Government building is to define his plans over the coming months so that the building can be used once again (…).

Original story: Diario Sur (by Jesús Hinojosa)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Hispania to Convert the Café La Granja Building in Bilbao into a Hotel

10 October 2018 – El Correo

Thanks to the significant investments carried out in recent years, the investment fund Hispania has become the largest hotel group in Spain. It has outperformed traditional companies in the sector such as Meliá, HI Hoteles and Hoteles Globales in terms of the number of establishments and rooms. At the height of its expansion phase, boosted at the end of last year by the purchase of the Alua chain – which saw it acquire seven resorts in the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands for €165 million – it has set its sights on Bilbao. Just a week after another high-profile fund, the Madrid-based Millenium Group announced its intention to convert Banco Santander’s headquarters on Gran Vía into a luxury hotel, Plaza Circular is now going to witness the transformation of one of the Bizcayan capital’s most iconic buildings: the site that formerly housed Café La Granja.

The hostelry establishment, which started life on 31 July 1926 and which was acquired by the real estate firm Navarra Fitbox two years ago, has been closed since 8 February 2017 when, unexpectedly, it pulled down its shutters for the very last time. The insurance company Helvetia sold the property for almost €7.5 million. After 90 years of uninterrupted activity, the historical café has only re-opened its doors since then on a sporadic basis to host one-off events of a cultural nature, such as book fairs. The offices and insurance companies that used to occupy the upper five floors have been evicted, starting back in 2010 (…).

Hispania is going to strengthen the hotel supply in Bilbao, which is experiencing a genuine frenzy, with the planned opening of seven new properties over the medium term. The fund has been planning its debut in the town for a while, but its intentions have always focused on this area, which will draw a new Bilbao with the arrival of the fashion giant Primark and the launch of the Regional Government’s international entrepreneurship centre in the former BBVA tower, which was sold for €100 million two weeks ago. The arrival of the AVE and the strong commercial positioning have pushed up prices considerably in this area. Like in the case of the building work to be carried out on the site of Santander’s former headquarters, the transformation of La Granja will have to be approved by the Town Hall’s Heritage Committee, which has not yet assessed the project, given that it is an artistic building. That procedure may be completed this month (…).

Original story: El Correo 

Translation: Carmel Drake

Solvia Leases CAM’s Former HQ in Valencia to an Architecture Firm

5 July 2018 – Eje Prime

Solvia has found a tenant for CAM’s former headquarters. The real estate arm of Banco Sabadell has just completed the rental of this asset, located at number 22 Calle Pascual and Genís in Valencia, to the architecture firm Join Contract. The new tenant of the property is going to remodel it to convert it into a luxury hotel, according to Valencia Plaza.

The duration of the rental contract may extend to thirty years. CAM’s former headquarters has been empty for the last four and a half years, after Solvia, which used to occupy the property, decided to move to the Ciudad Gran Turia at the end of 2013.

The building, constructed in 1916 by the architect Francisco Javier Goerlich Lleó for the Niederleitner family, spans more than 4,500 m2 spread over nine floors: two underground parking floors, one ground floor, a mezzanine level, four regular floors and the attic.

Join Contract, administrated by Óscar Nácher, is still deciding what to do with the premises on the ground floor. The new tenant is debating between opening a restaurant there or leasing it for commercial use, given that the site is very close to busy Calle Colón.

Administrated by Valencian businessmen from the hotel sector and with 25% of its share capital owned by foreigners, Join Contract already signed a similar operation last year to convert the former headquarters of the Regional Ministry of Industry on Calle Colón in Valencia into a luxury hotel.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Apple’s Landlord to Build a 20,000 m2 Hotel in Central Madrid

27 June 2018 – El Economista

The Mexican Díaz Estrada family, owner of the Apple store in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol, has decided to launch a new hotel project in the heart of the Spanish capital. It will be a large complex, spanning almost 20,000 m2, which is going to be built on Calle Montera, in two adjacent buildings, one of which used to house the former Acteón cinemas for many years.

According to several sources in the sector, speaking to El Economista, the Latin American group has decided to re-launch this development now, although it has been working on it for several years. In this way, the family acquired numbers 25-27 Calle Montera in 2013 through its company Exacorp One. That building had been owned by the public company Madrid Espacios y Congresos, which purchased it in 2007 for €55.4 million during the reign of Alberto Ruíz Gallardón. The intention of the Administration was to renovate the property and give it a new lease of life as a hotel, but that operation was thwarted by the arrival of the crisis and the plummeting prices. In the end, it sold it for €34 million to Exacorp One, which, in 2015, also acquired the adjacent building (Montera 29-31) where the Acteón cinemas used to be located.

Now the group is going to convert both buildings into a 173-room hotel complex, according to the project plans to which this newspaper has had access. Thus, the company obtained the permits to carry out this project last summer and according to the same sources, may have already reached an agreement with a chain to operate the hotel. According to the experts, this project has sparked interest amongst all operators, especially those who still don’t have a presence in Spain. “It is a very iconic project in the heart of Madrid, where there are few developments of this size underway. Moreover, Calle Montera has undergone a very significant transformation in recent times, to improve its retail and restaurant offer”.

The construction of the new hotel will involve the complete demolition of the building at number 29-31 (the Acteón cinemas) in order to build a new building connected to the adjoining one. The 12-storey establishment will have one of the best terraces in the centre, spanning 654 m2 – housing a restaurant – with a swimming pool (…). The initial plans also include the installation of a gym, a bar, meeting and banquet rooms, as well as a function room for the hotel. In addition, the building will house five commercial premises.

This is not the first hotel project from the Díaz Estrada family, which is also the owner of the new Hyatt Centric, at number 31 Gran Vía. With that opening, the chain returned to Madrid in December 2017 after leaving the management of the Villa Magna nine years ago. The Hyatt name is precisely one that is being suggested as a possible contender to operate the hotel on Calle Montera, under one of the chain’s other brands, given that it could do so by reaching a double agreement with the owners.

Original story: El Economista (by Alba Brualla)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Grosvenor Backs the Rental Sector in Spain & Formalises its First Purchases in Madrid

1 June 2018 – Eje Prime

Grosvenor is betting on a business that is on the rise in Spain: the residential rental market. The group, which is going to spend €200 million on its growth plans in the country between now and 2022, as Eje Prime revealed, has recently acquired a building on Calle Rey Francisco, in the Madrilenian neighbourhood of Argüelles, which it is going to rent out.

The property in question is a protected building, located in an area that is very close to the university centres, and which the company hopes to renovate to create rental homes and convert the existing commercial premises into common areas, according to Expansión. In total, the building will have 23 homes, some of which are currently let out under the old rent system, whose tenants will be maintained by the British real estate company.

To give continuity to its business in Spain, Grosvenor will allocate more than €200 million to purchases, together with the Malaysian group Amprop, with which it has created a joint venture in the country. The group’s objective is to double its asset portfolio between now and 2022, according to James Raynor, CEO of Grosvenor, speaking to Eje Prime in an interview.

Grosvenor’s most ambitious plans in Spain include new purchases. The group, which has an office in Madrid and employs eight people in the country, has increased its investment capacity through its joint venture company with Amprop, created last year to build luxury apartments in Madrid, to €200 million.

The objective of the alliance with Amcorp is to back value-added investments, whereby assuming the associated risk but also receiving higher returns. The two groups have allocated a budget of €70 million for these types of projects, although they have reviewed the numbers thanks to the opportunities on offer in the Spanish market.

Original story: Eje Prime 

Translation: Carmel Drake

Núñez i Navarro Builds a Prime Residential Development on Paseo de Gracia

30 May 2018 – Eje Prime

The industry stalwart Núñez i Navarro wants to generate returns from some of its old investments. The company has started work on the renovation of one of the buildings that it acquired in Barcelona before the crisis to convert it into a residential property. The asset is located at number 125 Paseo de Gracia, one of the most prime areas of the Catalan capital for the residential sector, as sources at the company explained to Eje Prime. Moreover, Núñez i Navarro has more than a dozen new developments under construction and on the market.

The group, founded more than 65 years ago, expects to begin handing over the new homes at the end of this year. The building, which used to house offices, will comprise around twenty apartments with between one and three bedrooms. These homes, whose average price has not been revealed, will be mainly targeted at international clients and will be available for rent.

Núñez i Navarro acquired this property during the process to buy a batch of assets at the end of the 1990s. The company purchased a portfolio of four buildings in Barcelona from the insurance company Eagle Star for €26.6 million. That lot contained three buildings on Paseo de Gracia, at numbers 125, 127 and 129, as well as the property at number 641 Gran Vía de les Corts Catalanes (…).

“This project on Paseo de Gracia joins the twenty or so other renovation jobs that Núñez i Navarro has carried out in Barcelona, highlights of which include the Andreu Tower, also known as La Rotonda, the Torre Enric Cera, the Casa Lleó i Morera, Hotel 1898 on la Rambla, the only colonial style hotel in Barcelona, Hotel Gran Vía, and the Can Trías de Bes farmhouse in Sant Joan Despí, amongst others”, explain sources at the group (…).

Diversification 

Although the group’s main business is residential, the company has diversified somewhat over the years in order to generate new revenue streams. The company has a major presence in the office sector in Cataluña, with a particular concentration in the city of Barcelona. For example, its portfolio contains assets such as number 35 Paseo de Gracia (Casa Lleó Morera) and number 20 Plaza Cataluña.

The group is also strong in other businesses such as industrial warehouses, car parks and hotels (…).

Financial information 

The company, the largest unlisted real estate firm in Cataluña, saw its profits soar in 2016 to €33.1 million, compared with €12.9 million in the previous year. In this way, the group returned to positive growth, coming close to its best ever result, recorded in 2007, when it generated profits of €48.6 million (…).

By contrast, Núñez i Navarro’s turnover worsened in 2016. The company generated revenues of €110 million, down by 5.1% compared to the same period a year earlier, when its sales amounted to €116 million. The company’s consolidated own funds amount to €595 million.

Original story: Eje Prime (by C. Pareja)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Town Hall of Barcelona to Build 150 Social Housing Flats in Former Urban Prison

7 May 2018 – Eje Prime

La Modelo is going to change its colour: it will turn from the grey of its former railings to the green of its new parks and family homes. That is the plan that the Town Hall of Barcelona wants to carry out with the urban prison that said goodbye to its last inmates last June. Since then, the Town Hall has been holding regular meetings with local residents and entities to build social housing properties on the land that has been left in disuse, amongst other aspects. The Town Hall’s current idea is to build 150 flats on a plot of land measuring 15,000 m2.

In total, the prison used to cover a plot measuring 27,657 m2, of which the Town Hall plans to use almost half, 14,000 m2 to develop a park that will add some much needed green space to the Eixample area in which it is located.

The first draft of the plans that the municipal government presented in the most recent meeting is one of three possible plans that the Town Hall is considering. It is the preferred option of the Town Hall led by Ada Colau, who will provide more details about the project in July, according to Idealista.

The work to urbanise the plot is not expected to begin until 2020, and so the plans may well undergo several iterations yet, although all three plans involve building public housing, green space and a section that will serve to preserve the historical memory of the 100-year old prison. What is known at this stage for certain is the amount of investment that the Town Hall is going to allocate to the project: €4.9 million, which has already been included in the current mandate, which ends in 2019.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake