Tag: tender process

Real Madrid to Invest €525M in the Modernisation of the Bernabéu Stadium

2 April 2019 – Eje Prime

On Tuesday, Real Madrid and the Town Hall of the Spanish capital announced the launch of a project to modernise the Santiago Bernabéu stadium, which will see a total investment of €525 million. The work will begin at the end of May and is due to be completed at the end of 2023, with no planned disruption to the fixture schedule during that period.

According to the club’s President, Florentino Pérez (pictured above, right), Real Madrid has already spent €500 million upgrading its facilities since 2000. Specifically, it has invested €256 million in several updates to the stadium and another €231 million in the construction of the Ciudad Real Madrid training ground in Valdebebas.

The latest project, designed by GMP Arquitectos/L-35/Ribas will involve a new step in the transformation of the stadium, although few details have been revealed at this stage. During the first phase, the La Esquina del Bernabéu shopping centre will be demolished to create a large square and another square will be built next to Paseo de la Castellana.

In total, 23,000 m2 of space will be freed up and distributed between stores and restaurants to complement the museum, which will also be expanded. The capacity of the stadium will also be expanded by 1,000, which will be dedicated in their entirety to people with reduced mobility or some kind of disability.

It is not yet known who will carry out the work or how the project will be financed, but a tender process for the execution of the work is scheduled to open in April. Four companies are predicted to participate: Acciona, FCC, Ferrovial and San José.

Original story: Eje Prime (by M. Menchén)

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

Valenciaport Sells a Plot in Parc Sagunt to Inditex for €31M

4 February 2018 – Eje Prime

Valenciaport has made the sale of a plot of land in Parc Sagunt to Inditex official. The President of the Port Authority of Valencia (APV), Aurelio Martínez, signed the sale of this plot by ‘Valencia Plataforma Intermodal y Logística’ to Tempe, a footwear company that forms part of the Inditex group, before a notary on Monday. The plot measures almost 280,000 m2 and its price amounted to €31 million.

The APV is planning to allocate the resources obtained from the sale of the plot to promoting, activating and streamlining Parc Sagunt II, purchasing new areas to attract business investment of port interest, according to reports from Europa Press.

Tempe was the only company that submitted an offer in the tender process that was convened. As part of the sale’s terms, the company agrees not to sell or divest the plot for at least three years. Moreover, the group commits to undertake business activities within a maximum period of four years.

In January, Tempe emerged as the buyer of this asset after it was the only company to submit a bid in the tender. The company already has central offices and two logistics centres in the Elche Business Park in Alicante.

Original story: Eje Prime 

Translation: Carmel Drake

Aena Submits The Only Bid To Manage ‘Ghost’ Airport In Murcia

31 October 2017 – Expansión

Yesterday, Aena came to the rescue of the international airport for the Region of Murcia with a multi-million euro offer to take over its operation, management and conservation for a period of 25 years. This ghost infrastructure was planned before the crisis by the regional government and a consortium of companies led by Sacyr, at a cost of €270 million. Nevertheless, the outbreak of the crisis submerged the installation into a tsunami of financial and legal problems, which prevented it from being opened even after the construction work had been completed, in 2012.

Five years later, in April, the regional executive opened a tender process, with a budget of €600 million. Aena, in which the Spanish State holds a 51% stake, was the only company that expressed interest in managing the infrastructure and it formalised its offer yesterday. Sources close to the bid say that the amount offered by Aena falls well below the tender price.

In all likelihood, the airport manager’s plan will involve moving operations from the San Javier military airport, 30 km away, to Corvera. The new president of Aena, Jaime García-Legaz, who has only been in the job for two weeks, has focused on the need to secure the management of the Murcian airport. “We are going to make an offer to win that is profitable for Aena”, he said last week in meetings held with the group’s personnel (…). García-Legaz is Murcian, but the offer had already been prepared by his predecessor, José Manuel Vargas.

Currently, 400 employees work at San Javier airport, of whom 72 form part of the workforce, which would be affected by the move. The managers themselves have reviewed the facilities in recent weeks to check that everything is in order so as to start the operation in the most agile way possible.

Some sources say that the first flights could begin next summer (2018). “The main objective should be to secure Iberia or another major airline to turn the airport into a key infrastructure hub”, they add.

The arrival of one or more large companies is key if the reduction in passenger numbers at the Murcian airport is to be plugged. Since 2007, traffic volumes have fallen by half, from 2 million users to 1 million in 2016, proceeding from low-cost airlines such as Easyjet, Ryanair and Norwegian. And that decrease has happened despite the recent investment of €70 million made by Aena to construct a second runway. The airport has a single domestic route, connecting with Madrid, and 19 international routes, primarily to/from the United Kingdom. 92% of users are foreigners visiting the region for tourist purposes.

By contrast, the aerodrome in Alicante – 90km away – has seen its user number increase from 9 million to 12 million during the same period. Corvera is now adding capacity to manage a visitor flow of 3.5 million each year. If Aena does end up winning the contract to manage the installation, Corvera would become the 47th airport that the group manages in the country. The company has the capacity to welcome 330 million travellers, 30% more than the 230 million that used its airports in 2016.

Sources at Aena highlight that the airport in Murcia would generate profits for the group (…).

The Region of Murcia’s Ministry of Development will convene a meeting on Friday to analyse Aena’s offer and proceed to award the contract to manage the airport “as soon as possible”.

Original story: Expansión (by Víctor Martínez)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Telefónica To Lease Out 1 Building At Its Las Tablas HQ In Madrid

30 April 2017 – El Confidencial

A year after taking over the Presidency at Telefónica, José María Álvarez-Pallete (pictured above) now has the telecoms operator’s first major real estate operation on his desk: the rental of one of the 13 buildings at the entity’s Madrid headquarters, specifically, the complex known as District C.

The company has launched a tender process with the country’s main real estate consultancy firms, with the aim of selecting one of them to find a new tenant for the North 3 Building. All interested parties should submit their bids within the next few days, given that the operator has asked for them to submit their projects after Easter. (…).

With this tender, Telefónica confirmed the rumours that have been circling for a while, which were further fuelled when the operator’s employees vacated the North 2 and 3 Buildings. The properties are located in one of the corners of the main face of the complex. Almost 10,000 people work at the headquarters on a daily basis.

In the end, after considering various options – ranging from organising a kind of small Silicon Valley for startups to selling the building – the team led by Álvarez-Pallete has opted to rent out at least one of its properties. And this option promises to receive interest in the market, given that in the past, commentators have speculated about the possibility of companies such as L’Oreal and Huawei being interested in moving their headquarters there, and which moves the group away from the possibility of selling the entire complex.

The option of Telefónica selling District C has been on the cards for several years – the idea was that it would remain as the tenant with a long-term contract, in order to obtain a sizeable cheque with which to reduce its significant debt balance. In fact, many funds have called at its door, but with offers that have always fallen well below the company’s €3,000 million asking price.

In addition, the new accounting legislation that, from 1 January 2019 onwards, will oblige firms to account for rental commitments as debt, means that any kind of “sale & leaseback” operations that the firm may have been considering under the prism of reducing its financial commitments would be significantly less attractive.

Located in the Madrilenian neighbourhood of Las Tablas, District C opened its doors a decade ago, after Telefónica took the decision to bring together all of its employees in Madrid in a single headquarters. Previously, they had been distributed across around thirty buildings.

Although the option of building a skyscraper was initially proposed, in the end, a horizontal design was chosen by the architect Rafael de la Hoz, with independent, but perfectly connected buildings within a single district. From there emerged what is popularly known as District C – the Communications District – although its official name has been the Telefónica District for over six years.

The complex has a total constructed surface area of 370,000 m2 and more than half, 180,000 m2, corresponds to the 13 existing office buildings: four of those, located at the corners have ten storeys each; another four have four storeys; four more have three storeys, whilst the main building, in the centre, has a surface area of 16,480 m2.

In addition, District C has 20,000 m2 of space dedicated to all types of auxiliary services, from a children’s nursery to shops; 130,000 m2 of space comprising open areas and gardens; and 5,000 parking spaces.

Original story: El Confidencial (by Ruth Ugalde)

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