Atlético de Madrid will Sell the Calderón Land in Q1 2019

2 February 2019 – Expansión

Following the demolition of the stadium, the club will be able to sell the plots where 600 homes are expected to be built.

The project to urbanise the Mahou-Calderón area, which will convert the surface area currently occupied by Atlético de Madrid’s former stadium into homes and tertiary use, has taken a step forward. Within the next few weeks, work is expected to start on the demolition of the Vicente Calderón, which will enable progress to take place with the reparcelling and subsequent sale of the land.

The Madrilenian club, owner of 50% of the surface area, will then be able to proceed with the sale of the land, which has a surface area of 14,866 m2 and a buildability of more than 63,000 m2. On this plot, between 550 and 600 homes may be built, with prices of around €6,000/m2.

Besides the Madrilenian club, the other owner of the land is Mahou San Miguel. The brewery company has not yet taken a decision regarding the sale of its share.

Candidates

Sources at the club have indicated to Expansión that several parties are interested in these plots, which constitute the last major stock of land left inside the M-30. The potential buyers of the plots include investment funds, property developers, joint ventures between the two and cooperatives. “We are holding very advanced negotiations with three of them with the idea of formalising the operation this quarter”, they state.

In terms of the timings, once work has started on the demolition of the stadium, which is expected to begin in the coming days, the reparceling project will continue, which will last for the months of February and March. Once the plots have been registered in the registry, they will be available for sale. The Project will carry out the urbanisation and building work at the same time in such a way that the homes could be ready within three or four years (…).

Original story: Expansión (by R. Arroyo & E. Santos)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Carmena Approves Los Berrocales, the Largest Housing Development in the South of Madrid

24 January 2019 – El Confidencial

The Government Board chaired by Manuela Carmena will give an important boost to the urban development area of Los Berrocales on Thursday. It is the largest in the city and the first to receive the green light of the sites that comprise the project known as the Developments of the Southeast (Los Desarrollos del Sureste). The Town Hall of Madrid and the Compensation Board for the area have finally agreed the initial text for the urban planning agreement for the management of the buildable land, which will see the construction of 22,000 homes on the largest land bank in the south of the city. 50% of the homes, around 11,000, will be dedicated to social housing.

The General Plan for the city of Madrid obliges the parties involved to sign an urban planning agreement for the management of this area. The Administration and the urban planning entity are signing the commitments assumed by both for the development of the area. According to comments made to this newspaper, the agreement reflects the obligation of the Compensation Board to urbanise the land (which spans 8,305,812 m2 in total) over the course of six phases, during which the planned buildings will be constructed and the services implemented. The project will run until 2034. Moreover, the agreed texts establish the criteria to ensure the equitable distribution of profits and charges between all of the owners (…).

The total buildability amounts to 3.3 million m2, of which 2,247,121 m2 will be dedicated to residential use. 50% of that will be for private housing, 31% for price-controlled housing and 19% for social housing (that latter two percentages correspond to 11,000 homes). The rest will be dedicated to industrial, tertiary, office and commercial use.

In terms of facilities, more than 2 million m2 will be converted into green space, 1.9 million m2 will be used for public facilities and services, 1.7 million m2 for infrastructure and 228,830 m2 will be used for social integration homes.

The agreement reached with the Compensation Board represents a victory for the municipal Government and specifically, for the Sustainable Urban Development department, led by José Manuel Calvo, five months before the end of the current legislature (…).

Following the green light from the Governing Board, the text of the agreement must be submitted for public consultation – a comment period – and afterwards, it will go to the municipal plenary. From that moment, the urban planning entity will be able to start work on the execution of the project.

Original story: El Confidencial (by Paloma Esteban)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Metrovacesa will Invest €400M to Build a New 550-Home Neighbourhood in Palma

30 November 2018 – Eje Prime

Metrovacesa is going to expand the city of Palma. The listed property developer is going to construct a new neighbourhood comprising 550 homes in the Balearic capital with an investment that will exceed €400 million. The company is going to build five developments in the Nou Llevant area, which is expected to be completed in 2023.

The real estate company has already started marketing the first phase of the project with Jardins del Llevant, a development comprising 91 multi-family homes with between one and four bedrooms and eleven duplex homes with four bedrooms.

Construction of the complex will begin during the second quarter of 2019 to be ready by the end of the following year. In the common areas, the enclosure will have gardens and two panoramic, outdoor swimming pools on the roof.

Through this commitment to Palma, Metrovacesa is going to develop more than 160,000 m2 of land, of which 110,000 m2 will be for tertiary use and the remaining 56,000 m2 will be for residential use.

Currently, the property developer owns a portfolio of land for the development of 38,000 homes across the country. The company is going to put sixty developments and 5,000 new units on the market next year, as Eje Prime reported. Metrovacesa expects to close the year “with double-digit growth”, according to explanations provided recently by Juan Núñez, Operations Director at the real estate firm. The objective of the company for 2019 is to be the number one property developer in Spain and to reach an annual turnover of €1 billion in 2020.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Madrid’s Town Hall Definitively Approves the Mahou-Calderón Development

15 November 2018 – El Confidencial

The final piece of the puzzle has fallen into place. The Governing Board of the Town Hall of Madrid has definitively approved the urbanisation plans for the Mahou-Calderón project after the corresponding period of public consultation came to an end on Thursday. This means that the owners of the land can now start work. The plenary of the Town Hall will ratify the final project over the coming weeks, although the claims phase is not, in theory, expected to alter the plan initially approved in July: it involves a budget of €42.2 million, will see the transformation of 193,804 m2 of land in total and will be executed in three phases in just under three years. The first phase will involve the demolition of the stadium.

The demolition of the Atlético de Madrid’s temple, an operation that will cost €22.4 million, will be the first piece of work to be carried out, with the exception of the stand located above the M-30, which will remain in place to interfere as little as possible with the traffic on that road. Subsequently, the traffic from the motorway ring-road will be diverted so that the stand can be demolished. The first stage will also include the urbanisation of the roads between Paseo de los Pontones, Paseo Imperial and Paseo de los Melancólicos.

Once those first projects have been concluded, phase 2 will begin, which will see the reorganisation of Paseo de los Melancólicos and Calle Duque de Tovar, with a budget of €7.7 million. Finally, the third phase, with a final budget of more than €12 million, will include the creation of a new park by the river, which, in any case, will come after Calle-30 has been covered over, by the Town Hall. Specifically, the Town Hall has committed to providing €60 million to finance the work to cover over that road, a budget that is separate from the urbanisation project that has been approved today because it was agreed that it would be processed independently.

The Governing Board chaired by Manuela Carmena gave the final green light to this project today, which is going to be financed by the Compensation Board that comprises the landowners (Atlético and Mahou). The surface area of the space is broken down into two sections, one of which is dedicated to residential and tertiary use, and the other to roads, green areas and basic amenities.

The land dedicated to residential use occupies 33,339 m2 (with a buildability of 132,344 m2) of which 13,243 m2 will be for social housing properties, which represents more than 11% of the total. Meanwhile, tertiary use land will have a buildability of 14,705 m2. Finally, the land dedicated to social uses will span 13,893 m2 for public amenities. In addition, 73,099 m2 will be dedicated to green space and 73,469 m2 to roads .

In any case, this final procedure paves the way for the construction work to begin and for one of the major urban planning operations in the city to be unblocked. It has been in the hands of the Department for Sustainable Urban Development, led by José Manuel Calvo. As this newspaper published in the summer, the initial approval of the plan – which today received definitive approval – was a key step for the plans of Atlético de Madrid. The football club suspended the process to sell its urban planning rights in January, as it was waiting to be able to offer the three interested finalists – Solvia, Ibosa and Princeton – a series of guarantees, including the reparcelation and urbanisation project, amongst others.

With the sale of its urban planning rights, Atlético de Madrid is hoping to raise almost €200 million, an amount that it is hoping to use to repay the Mexican businessman Carlos Slim for the €160 million loan that he granted  to Enrique Cerezo’s club to finance the completion of the construction of the new stadium, the Wanda Metropolitano (…).

Original story: El Confidencial (by Paloma Esteban)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Metrovacesa Sells Tertiary-Use Plot in Barcelona for €22M

26 April 2018 – La Vanguardia

Metrovacesa has sold a plot of tertiary-use land in Barcelona, located in the 22@ district of the Catalan Capital, to the property developer La Llave de Oro for €22 million, according to a statement from the real estate company.

The company in which Santander and BBVA hold stakes says that with this transaction, it has now achieved 75% of the total land sales target that it set itself for 2018.

Metrovacesa has closed the sale of this land after completing all of its urban planning management procedures in December. The plot forms part of a portfolio of tertiary-use land owned by the real estate company spanning 1.3 million and worth around €700 million, which represents 27% of its total portfolio.

Original story: La Vanguardia

Translation: Carmel Drake

Colonial Buys 110,000 m2 of Land in Méndez Álvaro (Madrid)

10 January 2018 – Eje Prime

Colonial is getting out its cheque book to inaugurate 2018. The Socimi led by Pere Viñolas has reached an agreement to acquire two plots of land with a buildable surface area of 110,000 m2 in the Méndez Álvaro area of Madrid. The group plans to build two office complexes on the plots, which are located next to Repsol’s headquarters and close to Atocha train station.

The land operation is one of the most important that Colonial has undertaken in the Spanish capital since the Cuatro Torres, according to El Confidencial. The agreement has been closed off-market, directly with small landowners.

This move will lead to the definitive launch of the urban planning project in Méndez Álvaro, which received the green light last year for the development of 129,700 m2 of land, with a buildable surface area of almost 250,000 m2, split between residential (185,313 m2) and tertiary use (61,771 m2) (…).

Specifically, Colonial has purchased one plot with a surface area of 90,000 m2, located next to Repsol’s current headquarters, and a second plot, also close to Atocha station, measuring 20,000 m2.

The acquisition of the two plots has cost €185 million. The total investment in the project, including the subsequent development of the two office complexes, will amount to €355 million (…).

The emergence of the Socimi in this operation suggests that in the end, there will be a greater weight of offices in the area, taking advantage of the dual-use (residential and tertiary) assigned to the plots that border Calle Méndez Álvaro.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Aelca, Ibosa, Amenabar, Pryconsa, Libra & Princeton Compete For Calderón Plots

18 November 2017 – El Economista

Atlético de Madrid has already received its first offers from investors interested in acquiring the plots of land adjacent to the Vicente Calderón stadium. The sale represents the largest land operation currently underway in the centre of Madrid and the football club is taking advantage of that fact to try to find a buyer willing to pay double the current prices in the area.

According to several sources in the sector, the companies that have bid to acquire these plots of land include the property developer Aelca, in which Värde holds a stake. It is the only one of the four large real estate companies still in the process, given that Neinor, Aedas and Vía Célere have all ruled out participating in the operation, due to its high price.

The same sources state that Grupo Ibosa is another one of the firms that is pushing ahead with the purchase process; and it is doing so with the backing of a fund. Similarly, the property developers Amenabar and Pryconsa have also submitted bids, as has the cooperative manager Libra Gestión.

The British family office Princeton is another name that appears on the list of investors interested in the Calderdón. That firm arrived in Spain at the beginning of 2015 and since then has closed several residential operations as well as a handful of others of a tertiary nature.

CBRE, which is advising the operation, will receive the binding offers at the end of November, with the aim of trying to close the sale before the end of the year. Atlético de Madrid wants to repay Carlos Slim on time for the more than €160 million that he loaned the Club, through the company Inbursa, to finance the works on the new stadium, Wanda Metropolitano.

The land up for sale is divided into three plots (RC-4, RC-7 and RC-8) and together cover more than 63,000 m2. The largest space corresponds to private residential use and the rest to tertiary use. The amount that Atlético de Madrid expects to receive for this operation, according to real estate sources in the know, comes to €200 million, which places the price per square metre in a very high range, of around €3,300/m2. In this way, the c. 480 homes that will be constructed on the site, will have to be sold for around €6,000/m2 if the operation is to be profitable for the buyer. It is precisely these figures that have deterred the large listed real estate companies, as well as those that have financial backing from funds, given that they must fulfil the returns they have promised to their shareholders and investors in every operation.

First obstacles

Although the project known as Mahou-Calderón, which encompasses the sale of these plots, has already received provisional approval from the Town Hall of Madrid, it is still awaiting definitive approval from the Community of Madrid’s Urban Planning Committee, which has four months to analyse the one-off amendment to the PGOU, and the Community of Madrid’s Governing Council, according to José Manuel Calvo, a Councillor for the Town Hall of Madrid, in an interview for the El Economista’s Inmobiliaria magazine.

Nevertheless, on Wednesday, it was revealed that the Ministry for the Environment and Land Planning had identified a “calculation error” in the buildability coefficients, and has urged the municipal technicians to correct the errors in order “to prevent the operation from being susceptible to being challenged in the courts in the future”, said sources from the Ministry to EP.

Original story: El Economista (by Alba Brualla)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Sevilla’s Chamber of Commerce Completes Sale of 2 Plots to Helena Rivero

2 November 2017 – ABC de Sevilla

This week, according to sources consulted by ABC, Sevilla’s Chamber of Commerce has sold two plots of land next to the Antares Club and on the Eusa campus to the family of the Jerez businessman Joaquín Rivero, who died in September 2016. The operation was agreed in November 2016 but was subject to the obtaining of municipal licences for the various projects. On the Eusa land, Helena Rivero’s investor group plans to build a university hall of residence for 400 students. Next to Antares, Helena Rivero is still deciding what to do with the 1,700 m2 plot, which has permission for the construction of a hotel given that it has been allocated for tertiary use.

In this way, the Chamber of Commerce, chaired by Francisco Herrero, will obtain a sizeable liquidity injection thanks to an operation that was closed for around €7.5 million. The negotiations for the sale of these plots were initiated by Joaquín Rivero Valcarce, the real estate businessman who chaired Bami. Following the death of the businessman in 2016, his only daughter, Helena, decided to push ahead with the operation.

Nevertheless, the sale of the two plots in question was subject to the Town Hall of Sevilla granting the necessary authorisations to build on the Eusa and Antares plots. Once municipal authorisation had been obtained to build a university hall of residence on Eusa’s plot, which has been allocated for social/educational use, the sale of the land was closed this week, according to the same sources. The sale had previously received the green light from the plenary of the Chamber of Commerce and the Junta de Andalucía, which oversees the region’s chambers of commerce.

A multi-national firm will operate the hall of residence

In terms of the university residence planned for Eusa, the plot sold to Helena Rivero’s investor group has a surface area of 2,200 m2 and permission to build up to 11,000 m2. According to sources consulted by ABC, a leading European multi-national in the hall of residence sector, which is listed on the stock market, will take over the operation of the building.

The other plot, measuring 1,700 m2 has been allocated for tertiary use – it is currently home to the exhibition hall, auditorium and parking lot of the Antares sports centre. On that plot, the company managed by the Rivero family may be able to build a hotel with a maximum buildable area of 6,000 m2, equivalent to around 100 rooms.

The hotel was promoted initially by Antares and it was precisely that project that led the company to file for creditors’ bankruptcy when the real estate bubble burst and it was unable to refinance a mortgage loan that it had requested from La Caixa in 2008 to build a four-star establishment in El Porvenir. Antares Andalucía had managed to reclassify the 1,740m2 plot, and so it was valued at €10.2 million in 2007.

In the end, the mercantile judge authorised the sale of the assets of the Antares Club, with their charges and levies, as well as of the brands “Antares Andalucía” and “Encuentros 2000”, to the Chamber of Commerce – through Eusa. The Chamber spent €4 million on the operation, including taking on a €3.2 million mortgage with CaixaBank.

With this sale of the two plots, the Chamber of Commerce will now have sufficient revenues to undertake projects in its two business units: Eusa and the Antares Club. The Chamber of Commerce plans to completely renovate the Antares Club, given that it is more than 30 years ago, and move its training activities to the SGAE building in La Cartuja. That building has a surface area of 35,000 m2, including an auditorium measuring 22,000 m2.

Original story: ABC de Sevilla (by M. J. Pereira)

Translation: Carmel Drake

“Valdebebas Is Ready To Welcome Companies Post-Brexit”

27 June 2017 – Expansión

Valdebebas – one of the largest urban planning projects in the Community of Madrid, with a land surface area of 10.6 million m2 – has fired the starting gun for what is expected to become the city’s “new financial and technological district”.

“We have land spanning more than 1 million m2 (equivalent to the surface area of almost 140 football pitches) available for tertiary use. People talk about Castellana Norte, but there is no development in Spain quite like Valdebebas. It is already ready to welcome companies from London searching for new locations after Brexit and any other multi-national companies”, explains Marcos Sánchez, Managing Director of the Valdebebas Compensation Board, which represents the owners of the land. Market sources indicate that the land owners include Monthisa, Bisbel, Vivienda Económica, Celteo, Coindeco and Inmobiliaria Espacio.

This business park will comprise twenty blocks, with buildabilities ranging between 9,000 m2 and 110,000 m2. It will house buildings that have between five and fourteen storeys.

The director said that, although they have not yet started “to sell” Valdebebas as a destination for companies, international investors, funds and hotel chains have already expressed their interest in the development: “We are still in the preliminary conversation phases. Until now, contact has been made because interested parties have been approaching us”.

For Sánchez, the aim of Valdebebas is to attract fin-tech companies and others relating to that sector. Moreover, it has the capacity to accommodate between three and four hotels and restaurant brands. “We have direct access to the airport and are well connected to the city centre. It is an unbeatable location in Europe and the world”.

In this sense, it is worth remembering that a bridge is being constructed to connect this area with Barajas Airport – T4, with a forecast investment of more than €20 million. “We have already moved earth and started building the foundations on both sides. The work, which was started in February, is going well and will be finished within two years”, he said.

Valdebebas has several advantages over the potential Operación Chamartín: the immediacy – with “windows of opportunity that can be benefitted from now” – its size and location, according to Sánchez. “Castellana Norte is our natural competitor; despite that we want that site to be developed as soon as possible and in the best way possible because we will all end up winning as a result”, he said.

Legal journey

In terms of the legal position, Sánchez acknowledges that, although Valdebebas has always been very judicialised – construction of between 800 and 1,000 homes has been suspended following a ruling by the Supreme Court – almost 100% of the residential property has been sold, the population already stands at 10,000 people and is set to reach 18,000 by the end of the year. In his opinion, it is “perfectly feasible” to reach agreements before the urbanisation is completed. “All of this administrative and judicial chaos will end when the urbanisation is handed over in two years time”, he said.

Original story: Expansión (by Rebeca Arroyo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Quonia Buys Mixed-Use Property In La Barceloneta For €7M

31 March 2017 – Eje Prime

The Socimi party in Spain is still raging. As the undisputed stars of the real estate sector over the last two years, these companies are still fattening up their asset portfolios and valuations through acquisitions. Such is the case of the Catalan firm Quonia, which after acquiring a property in one of the best area of La Barceloneta in the Catalan capital, has increased its valuation by 12% to €72 million, according to the annual accounts filed by the company.

The most recent asset acquired by Quonia, a vehicle managed externally by Rusiton XXI, a specialist real estate fund manager with extensive financial experience, is a property at number 60 on Passeig Joan de Borbó, in La Barceloneta, one of the most touristic areas in the Catalan capital, for €7 million.

The property comprises three commercial premises on the ground floor, which are currently occupied by the classic restaurant Can Manel, which has now closed its doors and which is going to be occupied by the Degus group, in an operation brokered by the real estate consultancy firm Laborde Marcet, according to sources in the sector.

The building also contains six homes on the first and second floors, and a terrace on the third floor. The gross leasable area amounts to approximately 1,658 m2, split into tertiary use (815 m2) and residential use (843 m2) which, according to sources close to the operation, will soon be subjected to a comprehensive renovation.

Following this acquisition, Quonia’s portfolio now comprises six assets, located in Barcelona, Asturias and Sevilla. The Socimi debuted on the Alternative Investment Market (MAB) in July 2016 (…).

In terms of Quonia’s management team, the role of CEO is held by Enric Pérez Más, an executive who is closely linked to the investment business in Spain. The director has held senior management positions in groups such as AMCI, Habitat and Investmex, amongst others. The Socimi’s Board of Directors also comprises Alicia Solares, Ana Marías Saucedo, José Luis Llamas, Mayra Hernández and José Luis Rodríguez.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake