Villar Mir to Invest in Portfolio of Office Buildings

16 August 2019

Villar Mir, through its subsidiary real estate company Espacio, is planning to build a portfolio of office buildings. The firm’s strategy includes development of acquisition of existing assets for rehabilitation and the development of new buildings.

Villar Mir has a land bank valued at 220 million euros on which it intends to build office buildings. The company’s objective is to create a cash flow that will provide it will a secure position during the coming economic cycle.

The group’s first project will be a turnkey development on a 25,000-square-meter plot of land it owns in Valdebebas, Madrid.

Original Story: Eje Prime

Adaptation/Translation: Richard D. K. Turner

The Plans Progress for Málaga’s La Térmica Site

9 January 2018 – Málaga Hoy

The real estate operation that is going to transform the plot of land that used to house the thermal power plant in Málaga capital is advancing through all of the administrative procedures that need to be resolved for the organisation of the 874 homes, office buildings, hotel and retail spaces that are being planned for one of the most strategic blocks of land in the city.

So much so that sources close to the initiative, boosted by the international investment fund Ginkgo, have reported that the final proposal for the Special Plan for the Internal Renovation (Peri), the document that will form the basis of the future development, has already been sent to the Urban Planning Department.

That is a critical step after the previous plans were blocked by the courts. Even before receiving a definitive legal ruling, the property developer, which shares ownership of almost half of the urban development of the sector with Espacio (the other half is in the hands of the Town Hall), opted to activate a comprehensive review of Peri, in an attempt to accelerate the process.

Once in the hands of the municipal technicians, the Town Hall will have to validate the proposed plans initially, before subsequently opening up the analysis to a series of sector bodies, such as the General Directorate of Coasts, Civil Aviation, the Environment, amongst others.

The design of the buildings was awarded by Ginkgo to the French architecture studio Francois Leclercq. Unlike the model for the towers that are going to be constructed on an adjoining plot (…), the vision proposed by the French designers involves low-rise properties and a sustainable model in terms of the environment.

The studio itself highlights the strategic value of the space on which the buildings will be constructed, describing it as “an area that is in full mutation and which is marked by an industrial past”, which is reflected in the maintenance of the chimney (…).

Original story: Málaga Hoy (by Sebastián Sánchez)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Torre Caleido: Villar Mir Unveils Plans For 5th Tower

11 January 2017 – El País

Yesterday, the President of Inmobiliaria Espacio, Juan Villar Mir, presented the plans for the fifth tower on the Paseo de la Castellana in Madrid, which will house the first high rise campus in the city and which will have 36 floors. He did so at an ceremony attended by the mayoress of Madrid, Manuela Carmena (Ahora Madrid) and the delegate for Sustainable Urban Development, José Manuel Calvo. The new skyscraper, designed by the studio Fenwick Iribarren y Serrano-Suñer Arquitectura, will be constructed in Madrid next to the complex known as the Cuatro Torres and will house the new headquarters of the IE University business school.

Construction of the fifth tower, which has been named Caleido, will cost €84 million. The building, which will be constructed at Paseo de la Castellana 259, will house the Instituto de Empresa (IE)’s university campus, a Quirón group medical clinic specialising in preventative medicine and sport, a shopping area and green spaces. The project, presented yesterday on the 42nd floor on the adjoining building Torre Espacio, will create 1,559 jobs during the construction phase and another 3,992 jobs once it is fully operational, according to the developer. It will be the shortest tower in the complex, at just 181m tall.

(…). The IE will occupy a surface area of 50,000 m2, with capacity for up to 6,000 students. By virtue of the lease contract that it has signed, the business school will occupy the property from 2019 onwards for a period of twenty years, extendable for another 55 years.

The total investment, including building costs, urbanisation of the plot allocated to green space, taxes and fees, will exceed €300 million. (…). The project will allow pedestrian access between the Castellana and the Monforte de Lemos thoroughfare, Parque Norte and Parque de los Pinos.

Villar Mir acquired the right to construct this skyscraper in April 2015 as the result of a public tender promoted by the Town Hall of Madrid. According to the terms set out by the Town Hall, most of the property must be used for healthcare or educational purposes, given that the plot must have a social purpose. Operation of the plot, which is owned by the Town Hall, has been granted to the company Torre Vida S.A.U. for 75 years, in exchange for an annual fee of €4 million, the highest offer of the four companies that competed in the public tender.

The Town Hall will assess, in coordination with the EMT and the Regional Transport Consortium, the requirement to reinforce and improve the transport infrastructure that supports the area, given the forecast increase in activity in the area as a result of the new building. (…).

Original story: El País (by Pelayo Escandón)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Villar Mir Negotiates Partial Sale Of Fifth Tower To Hispania

29 September 2016 – Expansión

According to the businessman Juan Miguel Villar Mir, the Villar Mir Group has begun negotiations with the Socimi Hispania to join forces for the development of the fifth tower, the new skyscraper in the north of Madrid, next to the Cuatro Torres Business Area complex.

It is one of the most important buildings in the capital in terms of investment, given that the developers will need around €500 million to cover the construction and rental costs – an initial lease has been granted for a period of 75 years.

Sources at the family holding company have confirmed that preliminary conversations have begun, aimed at Hispania’s entry into the project “as a minority shareholder”. Other sources state that the Socimi, managed by the Azora group and in which George Soros holds a stake, may be interested in acquiring 100% of the building, which will be leased in its entirety. Nevertheless, the Villar Mir Group assures that it will maintain the majority stake.

The fifth tower project, which Villar Mir won at the end of 2014 in a tender organised by the Town Hall of Madrid, has already selected its tenants. Earlier this year, the IE Business School agreed to lease 50,000 sqm of the building for its campus. The bottom part of the complex, measuring 12,000 sqm, will house leisure areas, a shopping arcade and a health centre, which will, in theory, be operated by the Quirón Group. The project, promoted by the Villar Mir family, still needs to obtain the definitive permits from the mayoress of Madrid, Manuela Carmena.

Partners

In September 2015, the Swiss investment fund Corestate announced that it had agreed to form a joint venture with the Villar Mir Group to jointly develop the fifth tower. Six months later, in March 2016, Juan Miguel Villar Mir qualified that announcement by stating that the agreement with Corestate had not been signed yet. With or without Corestate, the negotiations with Hispania are happening at a time of peak activity for Spain’s listed Socimis. Hispania reached the final round of the tender to acquire the building, after it partnered up with Ferrovial, but Villar Mir won the 75-year lease by offering to pay an annual fee of €4 million, equivalent to twice the bid price. (…).

Divestments

The search for partners forms part of the strategy being pursued by the Villar Mir’s holding company to finance its multi-million investment commitments through Espacio and OHL, without increasing its debt, which amounts to €14,000 million. The other source of extraordinary income comes from the sale of its assets. (…).

The group needs funds to tackle its three major real estate projects (the fifth tower, the Canalejas Complex and the War Office in London), as well as several toll roads in Latin America.

Original story: Expansión (by C. Morán and R. Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Villar Mir Will Build A New Skyscraper On La Castellana

30 April 2015 – Expansión

Through his real estate subsidiary Espacio, the businessman Juan Miguel Villar Mir has been awarded the plot of land behind the Cuatro Torres complex in Madrid, where he will build a private hospital and a shopping area.

There will soon been a fifth skyscraper in the complex known, until now, as the Cuatro Torres Business Area, on the Paseo de la Castellana, in Madrid. Yesterday, the Town Hall of Madrid announced that it was awarding the plot of land located behind the complex, to the real estate company Espacio, owned by the businessman Juan Miguel Villar Mir.

Espacio will construct a private hospital with a shopping area on this land. The businessman, who also owns the construction company OHL and who is the primary shareholder of Colonial, has won the award process for this plot of land, where the Town Hall of Madrid was originally going to build the International Convention Centre, before it was forced to suspend its plans in 2010, due to a lack of funding.

At the end of 2014, Ana Botella’s Government decided to seek an alternative plan for this plot of land and it organised a bid in which it asked for participants to offer an annual fee of €1.935 million for the right to use the plot of land. Four bids were submitted but only two were admitted since one did not exceed the (minimum) required fee and the other was ruled out for formal reasons.

One of the two projects that made the cut was led by the property company Hispania, which presented its bid jointly with Ferrovial, and committed itself to paying €2.6 million (per year). Villar Mir, meanwhile, offered to pay €4 million per year for the next 75 years.

The land situated just behind the existing Cuatro Torres has a surface area of 33,325 square metres and a buildable area of 70,000 square metres. In this space, to which a green area measuring 33,647 square metres will be added, the winning bidder will have to allocate 53,500 square metres for public use; the remaining 16,500 square metres may be destined for commercial use.

Villar Mir’s proposal is to construct a skyscraper, which will be similar to the other towers in terms of height and which will house a hospital. “The building will be as tall as the neighbouring towers and will house health services, and the top floors will be occupied by scientific companies linked to the health sector”.

Moreover, next to the skyscrapers, Espacio will create another, low-level building, which will be used to provide recreational and commercial services for the new skyscraper and the four existing ones, which mainly house offices. “Most of the construction will be horizontal, built in a north-south direction, over the entire floor of the structure that has already been constructed and designed based on landscaped terraces, which will descend from the high public square down to the pedestrian access, which is reached from the plot classified as a green area”, said (a representative from) the project.

In addition, the new skyscraper will be connected to the four that have already been constructed – which all have direct access from the Castellana – through a landscaped pedestrian zone.

In total, Villar Mir will invest €500 million in the project, including both the full (canon) payment and the construction work. Of this amount, €134.06 million will be spent on the building and development of the plot.

This project comes in addition to the plan to lengthen the Paseo de la Castellana by 3.7km to the north on land that Renfe and Adif own in the area.

Original story: Expansión (by Rocío Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Villar Mir Will Construct A Skyscraper Close To Cuatro Torres

20 April 2015 – Expansión

Project / The owner of OHL and Espacio is going to invest €500 million on the construction of a building behind the Castellana complex in Madrid, which will house a hospital and a shopping centre.

The businessman Juan Miguel Villar Mir (pictured above) is going to promote a new large real estate project in Madrid. The business man, who is in the middle of the construction of a hotel, residential and commercial complex in Canalejas, in the centre of the capital, through his group Villar Mir, has submitted the best offer for the plot of land located just behind the Cuatro Torres Business Area complex.

The land, which has a surface area of 33,325 square metres and a buildable surface area of 70,000 square meters, was originally going house a convention centre. However, in 2010, the Town Hall of Madrid halted the project, despite having already commenced the construction work, due to a lack of funds and, at the end of 2014, it decided to seek an alternative plan. In March, the Government of Ana Botella received several offers – four to be specific.

Other offers

In the end, Grupo Villar Mar has been named as the winner of the tender process, at the expense of the proposal submitted by the Socimi Hispania, which participated with Ferrovial.

Villar Mir made the highest bid, since the group that owns the construction company OHL and the real estate firm Espacio will pay an annual fee of €4 million for the concession, which grants the right to use the plot of land for a period of 75 years. The town hall requested that the winning bidder pay an annual fee of at least €1.935 million. The other bid that was accepted, led by Hispania, offered to pay €2.6 million per year for the plot of land. A third proposal, submitted by Axa, was declared inadmissable due to formal defects and a fourth bid did not meet the minimum fee demanded by the Town Hall, according to sources close to the process.

Villar Mir’s proposal includes a hospital and a shopping centre. The Town Hall of Madrid demanded that around 53,000 square metres of the 70,000 square metres available would be allocated for public use, which will be the hospital area. The remainder, around 17,500 square meters will be turned into a shopping cenetre to provide services for the area.

Villar Mir will place the entire buildable area in a single building, which may have up to 35 floors, similar to Torre Picasso, which is 156 metres tall, compared with the 250 metre high Torre Foster and Torre de Cristal, located next to the future property. “It will be an iconic building”, say sources close to the process.

The company expects to invest €500 million the project, including construction costs, which will amount to around €200 million and the payment of the concession, which will amount to €300 million in total. Villar Mir is negotiating with several hospital groups that already operate in Madrid to become their landlord, although its negotiations with one player in particular are more advanced than with others, explain the same sources.

Currently, the Cuatro Torres complex, located at number 259 Paseo de la Castellana in Madrid, has four skyscrapers: Torre Foster, owned by Bankia and leased to Cepsa; Torre PwC, owned by Testa; Torre de Cristal, owned by Mutua Madrileña; and Torre Espacio, owned by the real estate arm of the Villar Mir group.

Original story: Expansión (by Rocío Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake