RIU Will Open its Hotel in Edificio España in June with a 65% Occupancy Rate

21 February 2019 – Cinco Días

The work to renovate Edificio España is progressing towards its imminent completion after years of drama involving the historical skyscraper in Madrid’s Plaza de España, constructed between 1948 and 1953. The hotel chain Riu expects to conclude the renovation work in the spring and will inaugurate its hotel Riu Plaza España at the beginning of the summer, most likely in June. The Mallorcan chain expects to open with an occupancy rate of 65% for the first few months of operation, according to explanations provided by sources at the company.

The hotelier expects that half of the guests at Riu Plaza España will be business travellers and the rest tourists. The company chose the 4-star format for this establishment precisely to strengthen its business market, since many companies expressly prohibit their employees from staying in 5-star hotels.

Riu Plaza España is one of the company’s largest hotels, with 585 rooms and the first to operate under the Plaza brand in the city, focused on the urban market. Regarding the provenance of its guests, Riu expects 60% to come from overseas (…).

Original story: Cinco Días (by Alfonso Simón Ruiz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Distrito Castellana Norte Plans to Start Work on Operación Chamartín in 2020

10 January 2019 – Eje Prime

The countdown to the start of the work on Operation Chamartín could begin very soon. The developer behind the macro urban development project, Distrito Castellana Norte (DCN), is hoping that the Town Hall of Madrid will definitively approve the plan to start construction in 2020.

Antonio Béjar, President of DCN, explained that “it is perfectly possible and expected that all of the administrative approvals will be granted before the elections”.

The director says that it is “a 20- or 25-year project” that will have to survive various governments “at the three levels of administration”. For this reason, Béjar classified Operación Chamartín as a “State Project”.

What will become a new neighbourhood in Madrid will have 10,500 homes and a new large business centre. All of that constructed on 2.66 million m2 of land, which is 26% less than the 3.37 million m2 planned in 2015, when the Town Hall was governed by Ana Botella.

Each of the two sides of the M-30 where the project will be built will have a very different feel. To the north, office skyscrapers are going to be built, whilst to the south, there will be large green spaces and cycle paths, as the backdrop to residential developments.

The office area will be built to the north of Paseo de la Castellana, opposite the Cinco Torres, and will have a buildability of 1.3 million m2, which is 200,000 m2 less than agreed in the previous plan.

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

CaixaBank Considers Selling Torre Sevilla Following its Opening

4 October 2018 – Eje Prime

CaixaBank is considering divesting Torre Sevilla. The financial institution is working on the sale of the mixed-used complex a week after the opening of its shopping centre. The bank, which is whereby pushing ahead with the divestment of its real estate assets, will assess offers upwards of €265 million.

Torre Sevilla has a surface area of 77,000 m2 spread over 37 floors for offices and a shopping centre. Although sources at CaixaBank confirm that the sale of the complex has not been initiated, they acknowledge that it is a “non-strategic” asset and that some funds are interested in acquiring it, according to reports from El Confidencial.

If the sale goes ahead, it would be the largest operation in the south of Spain in recent years by type of asset and asking price. The financial institution would retain ownership of the Caixaforum only, which is located on the lower levels of the shopping centre and which officially opened in 2018.

CaixaBank has injected a total of €110 million into the complex over the last six years, bringing the total cost to €320 million. The skyscraper was inaugurated in 2016 and the shopping centre was opened last week. Currently, tenants of the building include the Sevilla Chamber of Commerce, Deloitte, the technological firms Chakray, Everis, Active Business&Technology and Optima, and also Hotusa, which occupies 17 floors of the property with a hotel. The Catalan bank also has several subsidiaries and services on a number of floors.

Original story: Eje Prime 

Translation: Carmel Drake

Tauro Real Estate Buys Torre Ámbar in Madrid

3 July 2018 – Eje Prime

The new Tauro Real Estate is rearing its head in the Spanish residential market. The fund, which is now under the mandate of Globe Invest, the Israeli company that acquired the firm in April by paying €180 million to its former shareholders, has recently purchased Torre Ámbar in the centre of Madrid.

In the middle of May, Globe Invest, owned by the multi-millionaire Teddy Sagi, acquired the rights to purchase the residential block from the Inveriplus group. The tower comprises 64 prime homes very close to Paseo de la Castellana, according to confirmation from sources involved in the operation. The amount of the transaction has not been revealed. The vendor in this operation, Inveriplus, is a group dedicated to investment in real estate assets for their subsequent management and value generation. The company, which is headquartered in Madrid, is led by Óscar Bellette.

The asset has been acquired after the clean-up that Inveriplus conducted of the tower. It, in turn, had purchased the homes during the crisis from several merchants of the Proinlasa real estate group. For the last few years, the manager has succeeded in leasing the block in its entirety.

Torre Ámbar is one of the skyscrapers that comprises the residential area of Isla Chamartín, located to the north of Madrid. The building, whose first homes were handed over in 2009, was designed for sale, but the change in economic cycle forced a change in the objectives and it was put up for rent in 2014.

The sale was signed “at market price”, according to sources close to the operation speaking to Eje Prime. “The returns that the property could generate are of much greater interest than the purchase opportunity”, say the same sources.

Torre Ámbar comprises luxury one and two bedroom homes, as well as several studios. The urbanisation is private and has security gates, a swimming pool, garages and storerooms, a padel court and private green spaces, according to Proinlasa’s corporate website.

The owner of the property has real estate assets for sale and rent in Madrid, Valladolid, Palma and Córdoba. In its property development plan, the group says that, in addition to residential land, it is also backing the tertiary and industrial market.

The owner of Camden Market’s commitment to Spain

Teddy Sagi is an Israeli multimillionaire and owner of the renowned Camden Market in London. The businessman, through Tauro Real Estate, has acquired 600 homes spread between Madrid and Barcelona.

Tauro has fattened up its portfolio in less than four years with the purchase of assets, primarily from banks, involving the investment of up to €160 million. In Madrid, it owns 350 homes and in Barcelona, it has another 250 properties. In the Catalan capital, it owns tourist apartments, which comprise 30% of the assets that Tauro owns in the city (…).

Original story: Eje Prime (by J. Izquierdo & P. Riaño)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Espacio Caleido to Build up to 80 Commercial Premises in Madrid’s Fifth Tower Complex

4 June 2018 – Eje Prime

More retail space in Madrid. Espacio Caleido, controlled by the company Inmobiliaria Espacio, is going to build between seventy and eighty retail premises in the fifth tower complex in Madrid. Together, all of the establishments will have a combined commercial area of more than 13,000 m2.

The commercial premises will be destined to retail, restaurant and service operators, which will be located in a zone divided into several areas (some next to the tower) and which will include gardens and rest spaces next to the shops and restaurants.

One of the areas that will be most representative will be formed “by ten cubes that will be located parallel to Paseo de la Castellana and which may be customised by each operator”, said Espacio Caleido. To market the premises available in the complex, Espacio Caleido has already opened an office to show the plans to companies interested in moving there.

The Torre Caleido project, which is being built alongside the four tallest skyscrapers in Madrid, will involve an investment of €300 million. It will span 70,000 m2 in total, stand 165 m tall and contain 36 storeys.

The fifth tower is going to be the shortest of the five skyscrapers and its neighbour, Torre de Cristal, will continue to be the tallest in Madrid, and in Spain, at 249 m tall.

The new complex, which is being built in the Cuatro Torres Business District, will have Instituto de Empresa (IE) as its main tenant, which will create its university campus IE University there, and the Quirón Salud Group, which is going to install an advanced medicine centre in an annexed building that will be four-storeys tall and 20 m high.

The project is being promoted by the company Espacio Caleido, owned by Inmobiliaria Espacio, of the Villar Mir Group, the main shareholder of OHL, with a 51% stake, and by the Philippine company Megaworld Corporation with the remaining 49%.

Original story: Eje Prime 

Translation: Carmel Drake

British Fund Behind Purchase of Benidorm’s Kronos Building for €20M

21 March 2018 – Alicante Plaza

A British fund is behind the purchase of most of the apartments in the Kronos building in Benidorm. According to local sources, of the more than 150 homes that are owned by Sareb, 136 are going to be taken over by a British fund. The operation is worth more than €20 million and just needs to be signed, something that should happen within the coming days.

As Alicante Plaza published on Tuesday, the so-called “bad bank” has managed to sell the properties that it owned in the city’s skyscraper in just one year. Around 20 homes have been sold to individuals, whilst the remainder will end up in the hands of a British fund.

But that is not the full story. It would seem that, at the end of last year, Sareb sold the storerooms and garages that it also owned in the building, the fifth highest skyscraper in Benidorm, and one of the tallest in Spain.

The tower has 41 storeys and was conceived as a luxury residential property: the structure occupies less than 20% of the plot. The remainder is used for common areas and recreation with two swimming pools, one for adults and one for children, a gym, a football pitch, padel and tennis courts, as well as extensive green areas.

The building was constructed by the Valencian property developer Grupo García Ojeda in 2005, and the keys were handed over three years later. But the crisis hit the sale of the apartments and ten years later almost all of the flats were still on the market

In this way, Sareb is getting rid of one of the skyscrapers that was hit the hardest by the “bursting” of the real estate bubble. It is worth remembering that Sareb rescued nine savings banks, including properties and loans to property developers. The latter was an operation that saw the skyscraper awarded to the “bad bank, whose debt used to belong to one of the companies owned by Grupo García Ojeda. Kronos has more than one link to Valencia, given that it was designed by the architecture firm MAPRC, which is also from that city.

Original story: Alicante Plaza (by Alba Mercader)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Villar Mir Redesigns Fifth Tower & Delays Award of Construction Contract

20 November 2017 – Eje Prime

Grupo Villar Mir has listened to its partners and the Town Hall, and is going to redesign Torre Caleido, the fifth tower in Madrid. The skyscraper, which is going to be built next to the Cuatro Torres, will be adapted to the requests of Megaworld Corporation, its Philippine partner, and the local government led by Manuela Carmena. Amongst other features, the project is now going to include a supermarket and a cinema, as well as more lifts than initially planned, as requested by the Town Hall.

This redesign of the building will result in a delay in the award of the construction contract, which is now expected to take place during the final month of the year. Nevertheless, OHL, the construction company that forms part of Grupo Villar Mir, is currently positioned as the favourite to build the skyscraper, since to date, it has carried out the demolition and the work to prepare the land, which spans a surface area of 33,326 m2, according to El Economista.

An investment of approximately €160 million is estimated for the main construction work to build the skyscraper, out of a total projected budget of €300 million. Moreover, Torre Caleido already knows who its most important tenants are going to be, namely: IE and Quirón. The business school has acquired 50,000 m2 of the skyscraper in its move to become the first high-rise campus in Spain, whilst the healthcare group will turn its section of the building into a state-of-the-art medical centre.

On the outside, Villar Mir has redesigned the plans to include a shopping area, which will contain a supermarket and two cinema screens, an express wish of Megaworld, the company that controls 49% of the project’s capital. The tower will have 36 storeys as well as a four-floor base, which will be 20m tall.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

SVP Global Buys Defaulted Mortgage Associated With In Tempo Skyscraper

7 November 2017 – Expansión

The investment fund SVP Global has reached an agreement with Sareb to buy the defaulted debt associated with the In Tempo skyscraper, the largest residential building in Benidorm. According to financial sources consulted, SVP Global has purchased a package of debt worth around €110 million, secured by the second tallest residential property in the EU, whose property developer, Olga Urbana, has filed for creditors’ bankruptcy.

It is one of the largest debt operations associated with a single real estate asset in Spain. SVP Global is a fund specialising in this type of operation and has around $6,900 million under management through its various vehicles. The In Tempo building is an unfinished project (although more than 90% of the construction work has been completed) measuring 192m tall and containing 47 floors for residential use.

The construction of In Tempo has given rise to a long-standing legal dispute. After launching the development of the tallest residential property in Europe in 2006, its property developer Olga Urbana had planned to finish the work in the middle of 2009. But, with the outbreak of the real estate crisis, the building work ended up being subjected to continuous delays and obstacles due to problems with the construction companies and suppliers. Although the construction work continued, in a fashion, under the control of Caixa Galicia, which financed the development with a €100 million loan, the financial crisis put an end to the construction work, which was never finished.

In 2012, the loan from the former savings back was transferred to Sareb, which at the end of 2014 and in the absence of an agreement between Olga Urbana’s shareholders, decided to enforce the creditors’ bankruptcy, with a total debt of €137 million. As part of that process, the judge approved the auction of the almost-finished building with a value of just over €90 million. Nevertheless, the offers were very low and so Sareb decided to exercise its preferential right to take ownership of the property.

Original story: Expansión (by C. Morán and A. C. Álvarez)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Junta Accelerates Paperwork For Puerto De Málaga Hotel-Skyscraper

16 October 2017 – El Confidencial

Clear path ahead. The Qatari owners behind the hotel-skyscraper in the Puerto de Málaga, also known as Torre del Puerto, had feared that the environmental impact statement of the hotel complex land would not be shortened (to four months) and would be extended to take 18 months. But, in the end, the Qataris have got their own way. The Junta has accelerated the processing of the paperwork to allow the project to go ahead. The tower will be 135m tall and the project will cost at least €100 million.

Pleas from Málaga’s College of Architects and the Ecologists in Action group against the height (of the tower) have fallen on deaf ears. A delegation from the Ministry of the Environment and Territorial Organisation is driving the abbreviated environmental procedure for the Dique de Levante platform, where the Torre del Puerto de Málaga is going to be built. In its definitive report, it concludes that the modification to the special plan for the Puerto for the construction “does not have any effect on the environment”.

“This is good news. It was one of the possibilities that was being considered and we were defending it, but we will need to process the paperwork for the environment and the tower”, explained José Seguí, author of the project, in declarations to El Confidencial. Seguí admitted that a non-simplified environmental impact statement “would have muddied the waters”, although in the event of an extended version “we would have tried to process as quickly as possible”.

In addition to the environmental impact statement and the possibility of including a casino, which is still up in the air, the Special Plan for the port now needs to be changed to modify the use as a public space. The Port Authority of Málaga, chaired by Paulino Plata, former Minister for Agriculture, Culture and Tourism at the Junta (…) defends the application of the reduced environmental procedure, which will have to be resolved before the end of the year. In a visit to Málaga, the Minister for Development, Íñigo de la Serna, announced that the Government would approve the tower. The Council of Ministers is the body responsible for definitively authorising the project.

In the midst of this process, Abdullah al Darwish, from the company Andalusian Hospitality II (on behalf of the Al Bidda group, which is behind the project), made his intentions clear in an interview with ‘El Sur’ newspaper: “We cannot wait forever, the time has come to take decisions. We have to move forward. For us, it would be perfect if everything could be ready within one year”.

Original story: El Confidencial (by Agustín Rivera)

Translation: Carmel Drake