6 October 2018
Almost half of the land available in business parks and industrial states has already been sold, and less than 18% is still available.
A third of the land in León that is zoned for business uses is already currently under development, while almost half has already been sold and a little less than 18% is still waiting for economic initiatives. However, the occupancy of industrial land presents significant differences in saturation and demand between some industrial estate and others. The reduction in the price of some of these lands seems designed to encourage the installation of certain initiatives, though the preferences of employers are also clear when selecting a location, and they are not always related to the price.
In general, it has not been easy to absorb the “significant expansion of industrial land generated between 2004 and 2007 by all operators, which doubled their supply,” the Economic and Social Council of Castilla y León noted. This affects the excess land available in the industrial estates promoted by the municipality, whereby, on the whole, the Community tripled the supply of business land, “becoming the largest operator at the regional level, with more than a third of the total supply” in the market.
In the case of the province of León, that supply was added to the investment of mining funds in this type of infrastructure in the basins, which increased the available supply of land at a time when the financial crisis began to take hold. The result was that more than half of the industrial parks in the province have less than ten companies operating in them, and many of them have not managed to bring in a single tenant, according to an analysis carried out by the Association of Owners and Entrepreneurs of the Leon Industrial Estate. (Apepil).
According to CES, there has been a “strong push” in the sale of industrial land since 2016, which means that on average the occupancy rate in the Community has reached 60%.
This percentage has not been reached in the province, according to the data of the council the occupancy rate in the business land in the province is 49.5% (something more than seven million square meters); while almost 4.7 million are in the project phase, 33% of the total. The rest, just over 2.5 million, which accounts for less than 18% of the land, is still available.
In total, the province’s business land adds up to almost 19.6 million square meters and is the third largest supplier of infrastructure of this type of the Community, behind Valladolid and Burgos, which head the regional ranking. More than five million square meters are non-exploitable surfaces (green areas, roads, sidewalks, roundabouts, …).
In the case of León, the town councils that have developed most of the land for “industrial” use (though industries are not always installed); with more than 7 million square meters spread over 27 industrial estates. Initiatives by municipal and private capital add another seven industrial estates and almost another two million square meters.
The Institute of Business Competitiveness (ICE, former ADE) of Castilla y León, a subsidiary of the Junta, totals more than 4.7 million square meters, and more than one million of them are still available despite the price reduction of available land approved by the Junta more than two years ago, in April 2016.
The infrastructure developed by the private sector also have an important weight, almost three million square meters, of which only one million are occupied. The best performance was obtained by the state industrial land agency Sepes, which has almost 2.9 million square meters in its industrial estates in León, and an almost non-existent available area compared with the rest of the developers.
The CES noted that a year ago, the plenary session of the Cortes unanimously approved the promotion of the León Technology Park.
Original Story: Diário de León – María J. Muñiz
Photo: Ces. Ramiro
Translation: Richard Turner
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