Tag: leisure centre

Parques Reunidos to Spend €15M on new Lionsgate Leisure Centre in Madrid

31 January 2018 – Eje Prime

Parques Reunidos is strengthening its commitment to forming alliances with multinational brands to open new leisure spaces in Spain. The latest company that the group has created is the film production company Lionsgate, with which it is going to develop an indoor activity centre in Madrid. Investment in the project will reach €15 million in total and the inauguration of the centre is expected to take place at the beginning of 2020.

Located next to Príncipe Pío station, the centre will have a surface area of 4,200 m2 and will house an obstacle course, a climbing wall, a state-of-the-art movement simulator, a 4D cinema and various virtual reality experiences, according to Expansión.

Similarly, a restaurant and cafeteria will be installed in the space, which will operate independently of the centre and which will not charge an entry fee.

This alliance between Parque Reunidos and producer of films such as The Hunger Games and the series Mad Men, follows several that it has signed in the past with other multinationals such as Ducati and Nickelodeon.

The group’s roadmap establishes the opening of half a dozen more centres of this kind over the next few years, with an average investment equal to the amount being spent on the Lionsgate space.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Heron City Sale Fails to Spark Interest amongst Investors

12 December 2017 – El Confidencial

A concept too unique for a market that is used to something a lot more familiar. That is the moral that can be drawn from the decision by Heron International, the property developer behind the famous Heron City centres, to put into quarantine the sales process of the three leisure centres that it owns in Spain.

The offers received by the British company fall well below its expectations, which has caused it to reconsider its whole strategy and take the decision, last week, to suspend the current sales process, according to sources familiar with proceedings.

As El Confidencial revealed in September, the British company engaged CBRE to find a buyer for its whole portfolio, which comprises Heron City Las Rozas (Madrid), Heron City Paterna (Valencia) and Heron Diversia Alcobendas (Madrid), and which has a valuation of between €230 million and €250 million.

Nevertheless, the appetite in the market has been lower than anticipated because the usual suspects who typically participate in these types of operations (large international funds and Socimis) actually specialise in shopping centres, whose casuistry differs from those of leisure centres, and where lots of investment opportunities are still emerging.

In 2017 alone, with less than a month to go before the end of the year, 17 transactions involving shopping centres and retail parks have been closed across Spain, according to data from the trade association AECC, led by giants such as Xanadú. Moreover, during the next two years, around twenty new centres are expected to open and six centres are due to be expanded, which will see an additional gross leasable area come onto the market of more than 2 million m2.

The result has been that Heron International has decided to suspend the sales process and redefine its strategy. The three Heron City complexes, which span a combined gross leasable area of 84,000 m2, have 6,100 parking spaces, receive more than 12 million visitors per year, and represent a brand that arrived in Spain almost three decades ago with a very specific leisure concept, based on cinemas and a restaurant offer that tries to distance itself from classic fast food.

Since its arrival in Spain, Heron International has only starred in one operation, involving the sale of one of its leisure centred, namely Heron City in Barcelona, which it sold to Babcock & Brown and GPT at the end of 2006 for €138 million. Almost a decade later, as El Confidencial revealed, that complex was acquired by ASG, the Spanish subsidiary of Activum, a deal that represented that firm’s first operation in the Catalan capital.

The leisure centre in Barcelona, as well as those in Las Rozas and Paterna were all built by the British company. In the case of Diversia, it purchased that centre in 2003 in conjunction with Realia (50%) and a decade ago it took over all of the share capital when it also acquired the stake owned by FCC’s subsidiary.

Original story: El Confidencial (by R. Ugalde)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Intu To Buy Xanadú Shopping Centre In Madrid For €500M

1 February 2017 – Real Estate Press

Intu has put the highest offer on the table for the Xanadú shopping centre and, although the final terms of the deal have not yet been agreed, all indications suggest that the British group will end up acquiring the sought-after asset.  

Market sources say that the price of this operation (…) could reach as much as €500 million, with an initial yield of almost 4%. That figure would represent a milestone for the market and represents yet another example of the high degree of interest being shown in this kind of asset.

A price of €500 million would exceed the €495 million paid by Deutsche Bank when it purchased Diagonal Mar in Barcelona last year and would make it the largest shopping centre transaction ever closed in Spain.

The Xanadú shopping centre, which is located in the Madrilenian municipality of Arroyomolinos, was inaugurated in May 2003 and is owned by the Canadian group Ivanhoé Cambrdige, the real estate division of Caisse de Dépôt et placement du Québec, one of Canada’s largest institutional funds.

Ivanhoé bought Madrid Xanadú in 2006 from Mills Corporation, together with two other shopping centres, one in Canada – Vaughan Mills (Ontario) and one in Scotland – Saint Enoch (Glasgow) – for a combined value of around €770 million.

The shopping centre in Arroyomolinos has a total surface area of c. 180,000 m2, as well as almost 10,000 parking spaces, of which 500 are indoors.

Madrid Xanadú houses almost 220 stores, leased to tenants such as Hipercor, El Corte Inglés, Bricor, Apple, Hollister and Decathlon. It also offers leisure facilities, oriented towards families and young people, including a 15-screen cinema, a mini-golf course, a mini theme park, themed restaurants and a bowling alley.

The shopping centre also has an indoor ski area, the only one in Spain and the largest in Europe, with almost 18,000 m2 of slopes.

Moreover, last summer, Ivanhoé signed an agreement with the attraction park manager Parques Reunidos to construct an Aquarium in Madrid Xanadú. Both companies reached the agreement with Viacom International Media Networks (VIMN), a division of Viacom to construct a leisure centre with characters from Nickelodeon at Madrid Xanadú.

The aquarium, which will open its doors in 2017, will be the first in Madrid and the first in a shopping centre in Spain, whilst the Nickelodeon leisure centre will open its doors at the beginning of 2018 and will be the first of its kind in Madrid. Madrid Xanadú is located fifteen minutes from the centre of the capital by car and is well connected to all points in the Community of Madrid.

Original story: Real Estate Press

Translation: Carmel Drake

Lar España Invests €53M In Shopping Centre In Sagunto

29 September 2016 – Mis Locales

Lar España Real Estate has presented its plans for “VidaNova Parc”, a new project in which it plans to invest €53 million and which will open its doors in 2018.

VidaNova Parc has been presented with a surface area of 120,000 sqm, of which 44,000 sqm corresponds to the gross leasable area and the rest to open spaces, roads, gardens and parking spaces. It is being created to bridge a gap in the current market and will become a unique shopping centre and family leisure complex in its immediate environment. Around 250,000 inhabitants live in its catchment area (…).

Lar España’s investment in the project is expected to amount to €53 million, in addition to another €40 million that the operators moving into the shopping centre will have to invest. The complex will open its doors in 2018.

The site has a leasable surface area of 44,000 sqm.

With the launch of the construction work at VidaNova Parc, the first operators in the main consumer sectors have already been confirmed, including Leroy Merlín, Decathlon, C&A, Worten, Norauto, Burger King and Fifty Factory (Cortefiel Group). They will be joined by more than thirty brands….in this new shopping centre and leisure park. In addition, the centre will have 2,300 parking spaces.

José Manuel Llovet, Head of the Retail Area at Lar España Real Estate, has highlighted the strong presence of the company in the country through its ten shopping and leisure centres and the two projects that it has under construction. “Our mission, which is a major business priority, is to consolidate our activity in Spain; we want to grow with it, generate wealth, promote employment, and whereby boost the sector and innovate in the field of shopping and leisure”.

Original story: Mis Locales

Translation: Carmel Drake

Sambil Plans To Open 6-8 Shopping Centres In Spain

29 September 2016 – Mis Locales

The Venezuelan Sambil Group plans to open a network of between six and eight shopping centres in Spain and does not rule out expanding its business to other markets in Europe.

Nevertheless, before embarking on its new projects, the company will focus on establishing what is, for now, its only centre in Spain: the Sambil Outlet in Leganés (Madrid), which will open its doors on 24 March 2017, after more than four years of construction work. It will become the largest outlet and leisure space in Spain with a gross leasable area of 43,000 sqm.

The new centre, which will open on a site on the ill-fated M-40 and in which Sambil has invested around €55 million, will create around 1,500 jobs and require additional investment of between €25 million and €30 million to equip the premises for each brand.

According to Cohen (Director General of the Sambil Group), the company has chosen Spain to make its first foray into Europe because it was “ideal” from both a cultural and language perspective, as well as because it has a lot to offer in the corporate field and is attractive again for overseas investors.

“It is a rapidly-growing, mature and legally secure market, which needs entrepreneurship”, said Cohen, who stated that the country “has all of the tools to continue outperforming other markets around the world”.

The Executive highlighted that a company such as his, which is family based and has its headquarters in Venezuela, does not travel “7,000 kilometres” to open one shopping centre, and he added that in Spain his company’s focus is very much placed on the most populous cities -Barcelona, Sevilla, Bilbao, Valencia, etc-.

Although the group is strongly committed to the “outlet” format, it does not rule out opening “traditional” shopping centres in some of the cities, although, in both cases, they would be accompanied by leisure and restaurant facilities.

In this sense, he highlighted that the Sambil Outlet will have the largest wind tunnel in Europe and the most modern cinema screens, which will be run by the Odeon chain, which is working to make cinema-going more “accessible”.

Moreover, it will house the largest Simply (Alcampo) supermarket in the Community of Madrid.

The company thinks that between 5 and 6 million people will pass through the doors of its centre in Leganés during its first year of activity. It has faith in the success of the “outlet” format combined with leisure, which is currently fashionable in countries such as the USA (…).

“Post-crisis, the Spanish consumer is much more rational than emotional” stated the Director of Sambil in Spain, Arnold Moreno, who confirmed that the centre will open with an occupancy rate of at least 80%.

Sambil Outlet will have stores from discount brands such as For&From (the Inditex group’s footwear label), Mango, Fifty Factory (Cortefiel), Décimas and Xti, as well as “low cost” fashion stores.

The Sambil Group has constructed more than 500 residential buildings and offices and owns a portfolio of eight hotels and thirteen shopping centres – ten located in Venezuela, one in the Dominican Republic and one in Curaçao.

Original story: Mis Locales

Translation: Carmel Drake

KKR & Neinver Finalise Sale Of Nassica Shopping Centre

8 August 2016 – Expansión

The US investment firm KKR and the real estate company Neinver are finalising the sale of the Nassica shopping centre, located in the Madrilenian town of Getafe, to TIAA Henderson Real Estate.

The price of the transaction, advised by the real estate consultancy Knight Frank, is expected to exceed €100 million.

The transaction is expected to be completed soon, after the due diligence process has been completed. TIAA Henderson also currently owns another Madrilenian shopping centre, Isla Azul.

Nassica, which receives more than 12 million visitors per year, has a gross leasable area (GLA) of 50,200 sqm and 4,000 parking spaces.

The centre includes a 10,700 sqm Carrefour hypermarket. The retail offering is completed by brands such as Conforama, Décimas, Merkal, Toys ‘R’ Us, Worten and Kiwoko. In addition, the site has a The Style Outlets centre with a surface area of almost 21,000 sqm.

In addition, Nassica has a 20-screen cinema, with more than 5,000 seats, as well as an area dedicated to leisure with more than 25 restaurants.

KKR, which created a joint venture with the real estate company Neinver in 2014 to acquire Nassica, will sell the property just two years after it bought it. At the time, the investment fund and the Spanish operator bought the Nassica and Vista Alegre shopping centres, both from the Pillar Retail European Fund, whose majority shareholder is British Land, for around €90 million.

Constructed by Neinver in 2002, the Nassica shopping and leisure centre underwent a makeover in 2015 to renovate and modernise its facilities. The renovation included both the decor of the property as well as changes to the shopping centre’s common areas. In this way, for example, the paving and façade were refurbished and new recreation areas and green spaces were created, and the terraces were made more accessible.

Original story: Expansión (by Rebeca Arroyo)

Translation: Carmel Drake