Praedium to Build the First 100% Co-Working Office in Barcelona’s 22@ District

12 December 2018 – Eje Prime

The 22@ district is going to have its first 100% co-working property. The Praedium Group, led by Alfonso Cirera, is going to invest €40 million in the construction of an office building in the technological hub in Barcelona, which is going to be occupied in its entirety by companies that back shared office spaces, according to a statement issued by the company.

The ten-storey property will have a surface area of 30,000 m2, and will be constructed on the corner of Calle Selva de Mar and Calle Marroc. Specifically, on the site that used to house the old warehouses of the company Transporte Mateu&Mateu, which was acquired by Praedium in 2008 for €24.3 million.

The building work is expected to begin at the end of next year with the aim of inaugurating the property in the middle of 2021. The building will have capacity to house 2,000 workspaces and another 1,000 in corporate offices and services in the commercial premises.

In the common areas, Praedium has designed a terrace spanning 1,150 m2 with views of the beach, as well as a basketball court. The property will also have a gym, a swimming pool and a parking lot, which will be located in the basement, with a surface area of 2,500 m2.

Almost 30,000 m2 of space leased to September 

The co-working model is proving unstoppable in Spain and the 22@ district is its current epicentre. According to data from Cushman & Wakefield, 29,100 m2 of shared office space was leased in Barcelona during the first nine months of this year.

Between the Catalan capital and Madrid, the co-working segment grew by 71% during the nine months to September, with 55,000 m2 of space leased.

That growth is due to the commitment of the large corporations to co-working. As the report explains, “at the beginning of the 2000s, small spaces predominated, occupied by self-employed people and freelancers; nowadays, these spaces still exist, but the potential of the co-working phenomenon has caused companies such as Banco Santander (Openbank), Accenture and Everis, amongst others, to also use flexible spaces for some of their activity.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

GGC Acquires El Mirador de Jinámar Shopping Centre for €45M

30 November 2018 – Eje Prime

General de Galerías Comerciales is now the owner of El Mirador de Jinámar. The Socimi led by the Murcian businessman Tomás Olivo has acquired the commercial complex located in the Canary Islands for €45 million. The company has been advised by Cushman & Wakefield during the operation.

El Mirador de Jinámar is the largest retail space in the Canary Islands. The asset has a total surface area of 50,000 m2, of which 11,300 m2 is dedicated to the first hypermarket that Eroski opened in the region. In fact, the Spanish supermarket chain is one of the drivers of the complex, together with the property developer Ambrosio Jiménez.

Since November 2010, the Mirador de Jinámar has housed a total of 120 establishments in its commercial area. Distributed over two floors, some of the tenants of the property include firms from the Inditex group, as well as H&M, Cortefiel and Primark (whose store exceeds 5,000 m2, making it the Irish company’s largest in the Canary Islands).

The complex is located in Jinámar, a neighbourhood located between the municipalities of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Telde, the two most important cities on the island. The complex also has a parking area with capacity for more than 40,000 vehicles. In a second phase, which is still pending, the centre is planning to expand its offer to include 45,000 m2 of additional space, which will be allocated to DIY and homeware firms (…).

Meanwhile, General de Galerías Comerciales made its debut on the Alternative Investment Market (MAB) in July 2017. The company has twenty years of experience undertaking its activity right across the value chain, from the purchase of land to the management of assets.

The main assets in its portfolio are retail parks and shopping centres in Spain, such as La Cañada (Marbella), Mediterráneo (Almería), Mataró Parc (Mataró), Gran Plaza (Almería), Las Dunas and Nevada Shopping (Granada). The company also has an extensive portfolio of residential assets and retail premises, as well as land, primarily in the south of Spain. When the company made its debut on the MAB, its portfolio of assets was worth €1.9 billion.

Original story: Eje Prime 

Translation: Carmel Drake

Impact Hub Opens its 4th Co-Working in Madrid Spanning 2,300 m2

28 November 2018 – Eje Prime

Impact Hub is expanding in Madrid. The co-working company has just opened its fourth centre in the Spanish capital, a space spanning 2,300 m2 in the Justicia neighbourhood, which is home to 250 work spaces. It is the company’s second opening in the city so far this year, according to a statement by Impact Hub.

The co-working office is located in the Barceló area, in the heart of Madrid, and is distributed over three storeys. In addition to the work spaces, the property houses fourteen meeting rooms of varying sizes for events and meetings.

This new opening follows another that the company completed in April in Chueca, where it has a centre spanning 2,000 m2 on Calle Piamonte. Nevertheless, the company’s expansion activity will not end with this fourth centre.

During the first quarter of 2019, Impact Hub will open its fifth centre in Madrid in Torre Picasso, as revealed by Eje Prime. That co-working office will occupy 2,000 m2 of space in the property owned by Pontegadea, which has leased the commercial premises in the iconic skyscraper to the company.

When it opens in Torre Picasso, the company will have more than 9,000 m2 of flexible office space and will positioned as the fourth player in the co-working sector in Spain. The company’s first two centres are located in the Las Letras neighbourhood.

Antonio González, Director General of Impact Hub Madrid, highlights that his company aspires to be “a bridge between diverse organisations to join efforts and talent towards a common goal: that of generating a positive impact from the field of entrepreneurship and innovation.

In Madrid and Barcelona alone, the market for co-working offices grew by 71% to September, according to data from a report about flexible working spaces compiled by the consultancy firm Cushman & Wakefield.

Original story: Eje Prime 

Translation: Carmel Drake

Montepino Buys a 22,900 m2 Logistics Plot in Barcelona

27 November 2018 – Eje Prime

Montepino is on a roll in Spain. The property developer, which specialises in turnkey solutions, has acquired a plot measuring 22,914 m2 on the Can Serra industrial estate in the town of Sant Esteve de Sesrovires, in a deal that represents its first operation in Cataluña.

With the purchase of this plot, for which Montepino has been advised by Cushman&Wakefield, the group will have the capacity to develop a warehouse for logistics or automotive use spanning more than 13,000 m2.

The land is located in a strategic enclave, close to Barcelona and with direct access to the AP-7 and A-2 motorways, which link the French border with Levante and Barcelona with the centre of the Peninsula.

“It is our first investment in Cataluña, where we expect to be able to expand our portfolio of properties with more projects of this kind to create one-off spaces that are fully adapted to the needs of our clients”, said Juan José Vera, Vice-President of Montepino Logística, in a statement.

Currently, the company is developing five projects in Madrid and Castilla-La Mancha, which span a combined surface area in terms of logistics space of more than 300,000 m2 and with an asset valuation that exceeds €300 million.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Invesco Buys 2 Warehouses in Madrid’s Prime Logistics Area from GreenOak

21 November 2018 – Eje Prime

Invesco is raising its commitment to the Spanish logistics sector. The British real estate group has purchased two warehouses located in the Puerta de Madrid Logistics Park from the US fund GreenOak. The two warehouses have a surface area of more than 38,000 m2, according to a statement from the company.

The assets are located on Calle de los Tapiceros in San Fernando de Henares, an area very close to the Spanish capital and the A-2 motorway, the busiest road in the last mile market. Invesco expects that the warehouses, which have a high degree of occupancy, will be finished by the end of the year. The operation has been advised by the real estate consultancy Cushman & Wakefield.

This new investment in Madrid, whose amount has not been revealed, follows the group’s search for a tenant for the 30,000 m2 logistics platform that it owns in Los Gavilanes, in Getafe.

Moreover, across the whole of Spain, Invesco has undertaken several operations in the logistics market over the last year. One of the most important took place last December when the real estate group acquired the facilities that house the headquarters of Mango in Palau-solità i Plegamans (Barcelona) for more than €100 million.

Original story: Eje Prime 

Translation: Carmel Drake

Portal de L’Àngel Ratifies is Position as Spain’s Most Expensive Street

14 November 2018 – Eje Prime

Portal de l’Àngel has reaffirmed its position as Spain’s most expensive street in Spain for opening a commercial premise. The busy Barcelona thoroughfare charges an average rent of €3,360/m2 per year, according to the report Main streets across the world 2018, compiled by Cushman&Wakefield. The amount this year has not varied with respect to the previous year.

Meanwhile, Madrid’s Calle Preciados continues in second place in the ranking, with an average rent of €3,240/m2 per year, which represents a 2% increase with respect to prices last year.

Across Europe as a whole, Portal de l’Àngel occupies the 18th position in the ranking of prime high streets in the region, whilst Calle Preciados is positioned at number twenty. In terms of the main commercial thoroughfares around the world, Barcelona’s prime street is placed at number 67 and Madrid’s at number 71.

In the global ranking for 2018, Causeway Bay, in Hong Kong knocked off Fifth Avenue in New York from the top of the podium, with a rental price of €24,606/m2 per year. Retail rents on the New York prime street amount to €20,733/m2 per year. In third place is New Bond Street in London with an average price of €16,071/m2 per year.

Original story: Eje Prime 

Translation: Carmel Drake

Goldman Sachs Puts Agbar’s Home in Barcelona Up For Sale

12 November 2018 – Eje Prime

Goldman Sachs wants to take advantage of the high level of demand in the office market in Barcelona. The US bank has put the headquarters of Sociedad General de Aguas de Barcelona (the General Water Company of Barcelona or Agbar) up for sale. The property is known as Distrito 38 and is worth around €100 million.

The asset, located on Paseo de la Zona Franca, is going up for sale in the office market just three years after Goldman Sachs acquired it. The bank purchased the building in 2015 from Bankia, as part of a larger portfolio, for which it paid €355 million, according to Cinco Días.

In light of the great demand in the office segment, which recorded total investment to September of €1.117 billion, according to data from Cushman & Wakefield, the financial company plans to close the operation before the end of the year.

Original story: Eje Prime 

Translation: Carmel Drake

Co-Working Spaces in Madrid & Barcelona Rise by 71% YoY to September

23 October 2018 – Eje Prime

Co-working spaces are on a roll in Spain. This global phenomenon in the office market is also reflected in ratios that keep on growing. In Madrid and Barcelona alone, 55,900 m2 of this type of flexible office space was leased between January and September, which represented an increase of 71% with respect to the same period last year.

According to the Flexible spaces in Spain study, compiled by the consultancy firm Cushman&Wakefield, during the first nine months of the year, 26,800 m2 of co-working office space was leased in Madrid and 29,100 m2 in Barcelona.

This growth is the result of the commitment to co-working spaces by large corporations. According to explanations provided in the report, “at the beginning of the 2000s, small spaces predominated, occupied by self-employed people and freelancers; nowadays, those spaces still exist, but the potential of the co-working phenomenon has led to companies such as Banco Santander (Openbank), Accenture and Everis, amongst others, also using flexible spaces for some of their activities”.

The boom in flexible and shared office space intensified in 2014, the first year of the recovery. Besides large corporate groups, which rely on this office model for optimising their real estate resources and the productivity of their employees, international co-working giants have arrived in Spain in recent years to create supply to meet the growing demand.

WeWork and Spaces (owned by Regus), global specialists in this segment, already have expansion plans for the domestic market. The same is happening with the main Socimis, such as Merlin and Colonial, which, in addition to promoting brands that manage co-working spaces, are also adapting several of their properties to convert them into flexible offices.

Madrid and Barcelona are the focus of this market. WeWork already has 35,000 m2 of office space leased in the two capitals. It is managing one fifth, 7,000 m2, from 22@, the technological hub of Barcelona, one of the epicentres of co-working in Spain. Spaces is planning to grow in the same district, where it already has 6,000 m2 of space across several buildings.

In terms of the large Spanish real estate companies, Merlin and Colonial are, to date, the firms that have backed this new trend most convincingly Both have entered the sector by purchasing or teaming up with specialist companies this market. Colonial acquired the brand Utopicus at the end of 2017, as revealed by Eje Prime, and now has a commitment to open ten new co-working centres from 2019, which will span a total of 15,000 m2 between Madrid and Barcelona.

Meanwhile, Merlin has launched the brand Twisttt, through Loom House, a Spanish shared office manager in which the Socimi owns more than 30%. Other domestic players such as Inmobiliaria del Sur have already made investments in this sector. In October last year, the Andalucian real estate firm launched iSspaces, a co-working centre in Sevilla measuring 1,800 m2 (…).

The identity of the next players to enter the stage is a mystery, but the fact that co-working has a long journey ahead in the office market in Spain and around the world is very much a reality.

Original story: Eje Prime (by J. Izquierdo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Telefónica Seeks Use for 11,000 m2 of Offices After Failure to Find Tenant

2 October 2018

The telecommunications company put its North Building 3 up for lease a year ago. As yet, the company has found no takers willing to pay 16 euros per square meter per month.

It was heralded as a major real estate transaction: Telefónica announced that it was looking for a tenant or tenants for one of the buildings in the tower complex comprising its headquarters in Madrid that were left unoccupied after the company’s restructuring in recent years. The firm is now looking for a use for the 11,000 square-meter space after it failed to find a tenant willing to pay the 16 euros per square meter per month requested.

In April of last year, the telecoms operator contacted Spain’s leading real estate consultancies asking them to bid on a contract to lease the company’s unused offices. Cushman & Wakefield was one of the firm’s chosen to find a tenant to monetise the empty building. The property has five floors (four upper floors and one below ground), 180 interior parking spaces and 11,112 square meters.

The market price for the leasing contract was stipulated at 16 euros per square meter per month, along with 5.50 euros/m2/month for condominium fees. Telefónica’s plan was to generate annual revenues of 2.1 million euros and income from condominium fees of 733,000 euros, a total of almost three million euros in rent.

However, official sources at the company confirmed that no interested parties have offered to take up residence in the building. China’s Huawei has demonstrated an interest but was unable to complete the move to the District, located in the area of Las Tablas, in the north of Madrid.

Building sales

Leasing the property is still considering a possible but, in the meantime, the telecoms firm presided over by José María Álvarez-Pallete is still looking other possible uses. “[We] are analysing different internal projects,” the provider stated, declining to rule out any alternatives. The firm had already considered using the space to house tech start-ups, both in-house and externally financed.

Sources at the company insist that they have not set a specific deadline to find a use for the building. The next-door North 2 is also currently unoccupied, and the possibility of leasing had also been considered previously.

During the last two years, Telefónica has sold several buildings in the city of Madrid. One in the neighbourhood of Argüelles went for about 25 million euros; another near the well-known Plaza de España sold for about €32 million, and its former headquarters in Rios Rosas Street raised €150 million euros for the telecoms and broadband provider.

The District, 10 years as Telefónica’s headquarters

The Telefónica District, formerly known as District C, was inaugurated in 2008, after three years of construction in an area of 370,000 square meters. The operator concentrated its activities in its new headquarters in a total investment of more than 500 million euros.

The need to transfer thousands of employees who had previously worked at dozens of sites left many facilities empty, some of which had been leased and many others owned. The latter were, for the most part, sold to try to finance some of the investment in the District.

Original Story: La Información – Jesús Martínez

Translation: Richard Turner

Zambal Socimi Acquires Everis’s Headquarters in Madrid

1 October 2018

Zambal, a socimi managed by the IBA Capital Partner fund, has acquired the Novus Building, the headquarters of Everis, located at 1 Fuente de la Mora (Madrid) for 90 million euros from funds controlled by AXA Im Real Estate.

Market sources explained to Expansión that the price of the transaction, in which the company that owns the property was sold, includes the debt associated with it.

The building, last renovated in 2017, is occupied by Everis NTT Data Company, which occupies 88% of the gross leasable area. In addition to the consultancy, other tenants include Hilti and Eurest.

Novus is located in Manoteras, one of Madrid’s business centres, near the headquarters of Iberdrola, La Caixa and BMW. Overall, the Novus Building has a gross leasable area of 42,945 square meters, divided into five floors of offices, storage areas and common gardens.

The property also has four courtyards and 561 parking spaces. The consultancy Cushman & Wakefield, which had already advised Everis in its leasing operation, and EY Abogados provided services for the seller, while the law firm Garrigues and PwC, the buyer’s financial and tax advisor, advised Zambal.

Other operations

With this transaction, Zambal has strengthened its asset portfolio. The socimi bought two office buildings at the end last year. One is located at 25 Albarracín Street, in the area of Julián Camarillo, in Madrid. The complex is currently leased to the French multinational Atos for about 38 million euros.

The company also acquired an office building located at 77 Avenida de San Luis from Naturgy (formerly Gas Natural) for about €120 million. The gas company is still a tenant. Zambal, created in 2013, debuted on the Alternative Stock Market (MAB) in 2015 and currently has a market capitalisation of 667 million euros.

Original Story: Expansión – Rebeca Arroyo

Photo: zambalspain.com

Translation: Richard Turner