Tag: Primark

Increasingly More Flagship Stores Remain Empty in Madrid & Barcelona

7 January 2020 – Eje Prime

There are an increasing number of large, vacant stores on the high streets of Madrid and Barcelona. Preciados 13, Sol 9, Paseo de Gracia 9, and Paseo de Gracia 77, to name just a few.

After several years of high demand for flagship stores in the two cities, when larger spaces become available, they are now standing empty. Operations have come to a standstill and real estate consultants are forecasting a decrease in rents.

Domestic and international retailers alike, particularly those in the fashion industry, such as Inditex, Mango, H&M and Primark, have taken the high street by storm in recent years, in their efforts to offer consumers a comprehensive experience.

In that context, demand has exceeded supply, and large premises have become the most sought-after. As such, prices have been rising and the family offices, which had traditionally owned the properties in the retail sector, were joined by large funds.

But now, the situation has changed. E-commerce is growing rapidly and most of the major operators have now opened flagship stores. With an excess supply in the market and fewer operators demanding large spaces, prices will have to decrease. Real estate investors are proving to be more flexible than opportunistic funds in terms of agreeing reasonable rental prices. Rental prices have not fallen yet, however, according to several sources, it is only a matter of time.

Meanwhile, a few months ago, H&M sent a letter to several of the owners of the premises it occupies in Spain (e.g. on Portal de l’Àngel in Barcelona and Gran Vía in Madrid) terminating their contracts. According to sources in the sector, “they sent those letters knowing that they would be able to stay in the premises paying half the rent”.

Original story: Eje Prime (Pilar Riaño)

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

Bankinter Acquires Primark’s Future Flagship Store in Barcelona

18 November 2019 – Zambal, a socimi managed by IBA Capital Partners, has sold the future Primark flagship store at Plaça de Cataluyna 23, in Las Ramblas, Barcelona, to a group of Spanish investors led by Bankinter.

The company sold an 89% stake in Trébol Core Properties, the company that owns the asset, for 71 million euros. IBA Capital Partners will continue to manage both the property and the company.

Primark expects to open the store early next year.

Original Story: Idealista

Adaptation/Translation: Richard D. K. Turner

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

Eurofund Logistic Capital Partners Acquires a 130,000 m2 Plot in Corredor de Henares

15 October 2018 – Eje Prime

Eurofund and Logistic are continuing to push ahead together in the Spanish logistics sector. The joint venture, created by the two groups in 2017, Eurofund Logistic Capital Partners (Elcp), has purchased a plot of land measuring 130,000 m2 in the Corredor de Henares for the development of a new logistics project on the site, according to explanations provided by the company to Eje Prime.

The plot is located in the third ring of Madrid, on a large industrial estate in Torija (Guadalajara), with direct access to the A2 motorway, one of the main logistics axes in Spain that links Madrid and Barcelona.

Elcp is going to develop a Class A logistics project spanning 80,000 m2 on the site. Located 30 minutes from Barajas airport and 45 minutes from the centre of the Spanish capital, the land is “one of the few available buildable sites with the capacity to house a new building of this size”, said the Director-General of LCP, James Markby.

Marketing of the project, which is going to be a turnkey development, will begin immediately. On the same industrial estate in Torija where it has purchased this land, Eurofund Logistic already owns logistics centres leased to large multinationals such as Primark, Leroy Merlin and Bridgestone, amongst others.

During the nine months to September, logistics leasing in Spain amounted to 1.38 million m2, up by 17% with respect to the same period in 2017. In parallel, investment exceeded the €1.1 billion threshold during the first nine months of the year, up by 43%, according to data from the consultancy firm CBRE.

In Madrid, 632,000 m2 of logistics space was leased, almost equalling the figure recorded during the same period in 2017. Of that amount, more than 50% of the assets corresponded to operations involving warehouses with a surface area of more than 20,000 m2.

Eurofund Logistic: almost 1 million m2 under management

The latest purchase by Eurofund Logistic forms part of the growth plan that the company has underway in Spain and Portugal. Created in February 2017, the joint venture currently has 775,000 m2 of logistics assets under management.

Moreover, the joint venture is planning to start work on 650,000 m2 of logistics properties. One of the parties, Eurofund Capital Partners is a subsidiary of the Spanish group Eurofund, which, in addition to the logistics sector, also develops and manages assets, primarily in the retail segment.

Last week, Eurofund was given the green light for its new commercial macro-project in Lleida, as reported by Eje Prime. That project is known as the Torre Salses retail complex; it has a surface area of 56,000 m2 and construction of it will begin in the autumn of 2019.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Torre Sevilla Shopping Centre Opens its Doors

26 September 2018 – Eje Prime

Torre Sevilla has been completed, six years on. The shopping centre, promoted by CaixaBank, will open its doors to the public today, whereby culminating an urban development program that began to take shape in the 1990s. The complex alone, located in the centre of Sevilla, has involved an investment of €100 million, a third of the total amount spent on the macro-project.

Torre Sevilla is opening its doors at the height of the Retail Apocalypse and at a turbulent time for the sector in Sevilla: Palmas Altas announced last week that it has changed its name to Lagoh, whilst the Alcora shopping centre project has been cancelled.

The new complex in Sevilla is a mixed development that includes, as well as a shopping centre, an office building, a Eurostars hotel, CaixaForum Sevilla and Parque de Magallanes. The shopping centre, designed by the Argentinian architect César Pelli, comprises two large buildings with a gross leasable area (GLA) of 26,700 m2 and a constructed surface area of 43,000 m2.

The complex will open its doors with a 95% occupancy rate, and with Primark, Fnac and Ikea as the drivers. “People don’t go shopping anymore, they go for a walk, and formats such as hypermarkets are no longer the drivers”, explains Antonio Cayuela, President of BuildingCenter and sole administrator of Puerto Triana (the company that controls the complex).

In this sense, Cayuela emphasises the location of Torre Sevilla, in the heart of the city, and its integration with the office building and hotel, which ensures footfall “every day of the week”.

“Shopping centres are changing, just like retail: the trend is now returning to local businesses, with smaller but very accessible formats, close to the city”, says the executive. The property developer forecasts that the centre will receive around 8 million visitors per year.

Torre Sevilla’s offer includes, amongst others, the first stores from Ikea, Primark and Xiaomi in the city centre, as well as restaurants and services such as a gym and a catering facility – a cross between a supermarket and a restaurant – serving homemade food to take away.

“Hypermarkets are no longer the drivers”, says Cayuela. “We have ruled out cinemas, because they occupy a lot of space, because there are lots of them and because in the era of Netflix, they are no longer attractive”, he says.

“Omnichannel” corner to compete with the internet 

In this sense, Torre Sevilla is also planning to incorporate new concepts over the medium term to encourage omnichannel integration and attract footfall to the complex at a time when the online channel is gaining more and more traction.

In this sense, the company will launch a space called Omni Tech, which will integrate different omnichannel tools, such as click and collect. “We want to be a leader in the implementation of new ideas in terms of omnichannels; although I do not think that the online channel will ever completely substitute a physical purchase, it is important to have a good experience in person to attract people to stores”, says the executive.

Original story: Eje Prime (by Iria P. Gestal)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Redevco & Ares Invest €45M in the Renovation of Parque Corredor

26 September 2018 – Eje Prime

Redevco and Ares are pampering their new asset. Redevco Iberian Ventures, the joint venture between the two companies, is going to spend €45 million on the renovation of Parque Corredor, the retail complex in Torrejón de Ardoz (Madrid) that it purchased at the beginning of the year.

The owner expects the work to completely renovate the asset, which spans a surface area of 123,000 m2, to begin in 2019. Moreover, the company has already signed the renewal of Primark’s rental contract in the centre and is closing agreements for the incorporation of new chains.

The project will focus initially on the fashion area, creating new façades and accesses. It will also modernise the parking lot, which contains 4,000 parking spaces, and will renovate the common areas and the lighting.

The new design has been created by the architecture studio Chapman Taylor. The execution of the project will be led by the architecture studio Arpv and coordinated by Gleeds. Cushman&Wakefield is managing and marketing the retail spaces.

Redevco Iberian Ventures acquired 70% of Parque Corredor in February for €140 million. Another 20% is controlled by Alcampo and the remaining 10% is in the hands of small owners. Over the last twelve months, the complex has received 11 million visitors, 4% more than during the same period in the previous year. Its offer includes several Inditex chains, H&M, Mango, Kiabi and C&A.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

BBVA Sells its Former HQ in Bilbao to Angelo Gordon for c. €100M

25 September 2018 – Expansión

The former corporate headquarters of Banco de Vizcaya is being converted, 50 years later, into Torre Bizkaia. BBVA, the owner of the property at number 1 Gran Vía in Bilbao, has reached an agreement with the investment fund Angelo Gordon to sell it the building for around €100 million.

The sale – which has been subject to negotiations since before the summer – will close within the next few days, according to sources in the sector, and will become the US fund’s largest operation in Spain, where it purchased the Hotel Dolce Sitges in Barcelona from Oaktree a year ago for €40 million.

The new owner already has tenants for the property. In addition to the Irish multi-national textile retailer Primark, which has committed to lease the ground and first five floors for 30 years, the Bilbao local government is going to lease the remaining floors to centralise its provincial services in the tower, which is going to be called Torre Bizkaia.

That move was announced yesterday by the President of Bizkaia, Unai Rementería (…). According to Rementería, BBVA’s departure from the building represented the end of an era, with which the financial weight of Bilbao was extinguished. “Now the provincial government is lighting up the tower again and is starting a new era of new ideas and businesses”, he said.

In addition to the services of the provincial council, the property will house on eight of its floors, an international centre for entrepreneurship, a project promoted by the provincial council and the Town Hall of Bilbao. According to Rementería, those eight floors will be “the heart” of the tower, and through them, they will seek to boost activity, recover economic weight, and reinforce the innovative profile and entrepreneurial spirit of Bilbao and Bizkaia.

The property on Gran Vía was constructed in 1969 as the headquarters of Banco Vizcaya, on the location occupied by the financial institution’s first headquarters. The building has 21 storeys in total, as well as the ground floor, and spans a total above-ground surface area of 23,000 m2.

Abandon

Following the merger with Banco Bilbao, the BBVA tower housed the operating headquarters of the bank, although the corporate headquarters remained – as it does today – in the former headquarters of Banco Bilbao in Plaza de San Nicolás. In recent years, the financial institution has gradually abandoned the property, which all of the employees left in March 2016.

Original story: Expansión (by M. Á. F.)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Tomás Olivo set to Acquire El Mirador Shopping Centre in Gran Canaria

13 September 2018- Eje Prime

General de Galerías Comerciales is bidding exclusively for the largest retail space in the Canary Islands. Eroski, the owner of the Mirador de Jinámar, is holding exclusive negotiations with the company owned by the Murcian businessman Tomás Olivo, the Socimi General de Galerías Comerciales, with a view to selling the asset. The offer is expected to amount to around €45 million, according to sources close to the operation speaking to Eje Prime.

Valued at between €45 million and €100 million, General de Galerías Comerciales is not the only company that has expressed interest in the shopping centre in Gran Canaria in recent months. In fact, Eurofund’s investment fund offered €46.6 million in July for the asset, which opened its doors to the public in 2010.

Although sources at General de Galerías Comerciales have indicated to Eje Prime that the process is still “in its infancy”, sources in the sector explained that the operation is causing controversy because the company owned by Tomás Olivo has offered less than Eurofund’s bid.

The Mirador de Jinámar is a commercial area promoted by Eroski and the property developer Ambrosio Jiménez. The shopping centre spans a total surface area of 50,000 m2, of which 11,300 m2 is dedicated to the largest hypermarket that the cooperative distribution company belonging to Corporación Mondragón owns in the Canary Islands.

Since November 2010, the Mirador de Jinámar has been home to a total of 120 stores. Spread over two floors, some of the tenants of the property include firms in the Inditex group (its Zara store has a surface area of 2,000 m2), H&M, the Cortefiel and Primark brands (the latter’s store spans 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 (…).

General de Galerías Comerciales, on the hunt for new assets

Controlled by Tomás Olivo,  General de Galerías Comerciales made its debut on the MAB in July last year, to become one of the largest Socimis by capitalisation in the sector. 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 (by B. Seijo and P. Riaño)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Torre Sevilla Shopping Centre Will Opens Its Doors on 26 Sept

10 September 2018 – Eje Prime

Torre Sevilla has set a date for its opening to the public. The shopping centre, which completes the architectural complex of the same name, will open its doors on Wednesday 26 September.

The opening of the complex will complete the Torre Sevilla architectural complex, a project in which CaixaBank has invested more than €320 million. Besides the shopping centre, Torre Sevilla is also home to an office block, the Eurostars Torre Sevilla hotel, CaixaForum Sevilla and the Parque de Magallanes.

Designed by the Argentinian architect César Pelli, the commercial complex comprises two large buildings, one with three floors and the other with four, which span constructed gross leasable areas (GLA) of 26,700 m2 and 43,000 m2, respectively. Moreover, the complex is located at the intersection that joins the Triana neighbourhood with the Isla de la Cartuja and the centre of Sevilla, the so-called “golden triangle” of the city.

The complex expects to attract 8 million visitors a year and will be home to operators such as Primark (its first store in Sevilla), Ikea, Fnac and H&M, amongst others. The initial space in the shopping centre has capacity for a total of 80 stores accessible along external walkways.

On the other hand, Torre Sevilla will also have a gastronomic space measuring 6,000 m2 and a fitness area whose facilities will occupy a surface area of 2,500 m2.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Sfera Leaves Gran Vía & Frees Up 1,000 m2 of Prime Retail Space

23 August 2018 – Eje Prime

Sfera is freeing up 1,000 m2 of space in the centre of Madrid. In September, the fashion chain owned by El Corte Inglés is going to abandon the store it currently occupies on Gran Vía, with a useful commercial surface area of 600 m2. The company has decided not to renew the rent that tied it to the recent purchaser of the building, the US fund Thor Equities.

Located at number 30 on the Spanish capital’s main commercial thoroughfare, surrounded by competitor brands (Inditex, H&M, Tendam and Primark, amongst others), the store is no longer of interest to Sfera, which has justified its departure on the basis of the small size of the store for the exhibition model that it is developing, according to Cinco Días. The chain has occupied this three-story establishment (comprising the first, ground and basement floors) since 2005.

Sfera is immersed in a process to renovate and reorganise its business plan for its commercial activity in the centre of Madrid. The company recently remodelled its store at number 4 Calle Preciados, which has a surface area of 2,500 m2 spread over five storeys.

The objective of the chain is to strengthen the presence of its store on Preciados so that it will become the firm’s flagship store in the centre of Madrid. Similarly, Sfera is going to start work soon on the renovation of its store at number 56 Calle Fuencarral. The company’s portfolio of retail assets in the centre of the Spanish capital is completed by a second establishment at number 118 Calle Fuencarral and the concession stands it has in the El Corte Inglés stores in the area.

In total, Sfera renovated 26 of its stores in Spain in 2017. With a presence in 15 countries besides Spain, where it opened its newest store just a few months ago in Fuengirola (Málaga), the chain is investing considerably in the international real estate market. The clearest example is Mexico, where the firm has 45 stores, all operated as franchises.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake