CBRE: Real Estate in Sevilla Attracts Funding from Overseas Investors

15 December 2018 – ABC

The city of Sevilla and its metropolitan area are now on the international real estate map and proof of that is that the major overseas funds are putting up a lot of the capital being absorbed by the new commercial, hotel and logistics projects in the city, “whereby taking over from the real estate firms of yesteryear”. That is one of the conclusions of a report compiled by the consultancy firm CBRE, which highlights that the return on investment has been felt most intensely in the shopping centre sector.

“With almost 300,000 m2 of future supply planned, Sevilla is the province in Spain that will grow by almost the most over the next few years in terms of gross leasable area – exceeded only by Madrid”, it said. “This will be a key sector this year and next for the Sevillan real estate market”, said Rosa Madrid, Director of CBRE in Andalucía. The first newsworthy event was the entry into operation of Torre Sevilla, “an open and mixed shopping centre, with a hotel and offices, which we have not seen here before and which is regenerating the area”, she highlighted. The office market “has absorbed without great problems” the 18,000 m2 that Torre Sevilla brought to the market “whereby disproving those who predicted a new crisis in this segment”, she said.

Offices

In the office segment, the highest rents are achieved in the most modern buildings of Nervión (a district in Sevilla), with rents of around €12-13/m2/month. In this area, some exclusive office buildings that were left vacant following the departure of the Junta de Andalucía to Santa Justa were occupied within 18 months. In La Cartuja, office rents are somewhat lower, around €9-11/m2/month, according to the report.

But, “the turning point” in the shopping centre sector is going to be seen Sevilla with Project Lagoh, promoted by the Socimi Lar España in the Palmas Altas area, to the south of the capital, and currently under construction. “Finally, the new era of shopping centres is going to arrive in Sevilla. Until now, we have only had shopping centres from the 1990s and none from the 21st century, like Xanadú in Madrid or Puerto Venecia in Zaragoza”, said Rosa Madrid.

Hotel investment

The hotel market has been also reactivated as demonstrated by the major operations closed in recent years. “In addition to the modern Eurostars Torre Sevilla, since 2015, the flow of properties acquired to transform them into accommodation has been continuous”, she highlighted. The most noteworthy operations include the purchase by the French real estate company Bouygues of the former headquarters of Abengoa, to renovate it and transform it into a 5-star hotel, the purchase of Hotel Macarena and the acquisition of the Generali building in Plaza Nueva by the British fund Shaftesbury.

Logistics market

Demand for logistics warehouses has also been increasing, at the same time as the major e-commerce operators have increased their logistics network in the south of the peninsula, such as the case of Amazon and Inditex, which have opened platforms in Sevilla. “That sector is here to stay. And operators are not only looking for large spaces far away from the cities measuring between 30,000 m2 and 100,000 m2, they are also looking for small spaces inside the SE30 to serve the last-mile market and demand for immediate distribution”, explained the regional director of CBRE.

Student halls

Investors specialising in alternative sectors, such as student halls of residence, are also placing their focus on Sevilla, a city that is home to 16% of all of Spain’s university students (…).

Original story: ABC (by E. Freire)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Nyesa Raises Capital with New Investors & an Office Portfolio in Cádiz worth €22M

30 October 2018 – Eje Prime

Nyesa is continuing with its plan to capture investors and increase its share capital and portfolio. The Spanish real estate company has agreed to a capital increase, which will allow the company Olaf y Rubí to become one of its shareholders. Following the operation, Nyesa’s new shareholder will introduce into the company’s portfolio 95 offices in Las Torres De Hércules, in Cádiz, worth €22 million, according to a statement filed by the company with Spain’s National Securities and Markets Commission (CNMV).

The investment, which will see Olaf y Rubí acquire a 21% stake in the real estate company, is conditional upon Nyesa’s largest shareholders (the US group Gaber, the Russian investors Eldarov, Ivanov, Samodurov and the company Fanumceo) considering that the assets in question will pass an urban planning, legal, tax and financial review.

Olaf y Rubí’s portfolio is associated with a mortgage amounting to almost €4.8 million. The new shareholder of the real estate company will subscribe to a line of credit to cover all of the costs relating to the mortgage (…).

Las Torres de Hércules, located in the Bay of Algeciras, were designed by the prestigious Spanish architect Rafael de la Hoz. Their tenants include companies such as the Danish logistics giant Maersk, which houses its headquarters for Southern Europe in the complex.

Standing 126 m above the city, the building was the tallest in Andalucía for several years, until the completion of Torre Sevilla, owned by CaixaBank. The property, which comprises two towers, spans a surface area of almost 20,000 m2 and was acquired by the Socimi Brickstock in September.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

VIA Outlets will Start Renovating its Shopping Centre in Sevilla in Q4

11 October 2018 – Eje Prime

VIA Outlets has a start date for the remodelling and expansion of its shopping centre in Sevilla. The European group is going to start the building work on its Sevilla Fashion Outlet before the end of the year, according to explanations provided by the company to Eje Prime. The start of the complex’s reconstruction coincides with the opening of Torre Sevilla, owned by CaixaBank, and the relaunch in 2019 of Palmas Altas, owed by Lar España.

The company is going to invest more than €13 million in this comprehensive renovation project of the Sevillan outlet centre, the group’s second largest in Spain, after its complex in Mallorca. Amongst other aspects, “the building work will include the reconfiguration of the restaurant and food area”, says the company, which is also going to increase the number of parking spaces by approximately 40%.

In terms of aesthetic considerations, the renovation will involve a general remodelling of the centre, which will include a new façade, a renovated entrance and new common areas. “This, as a whole, will contribute to repositioning Sevilla Fashion Outlet as the only premium outlet in Andalucía”, says the group.

The retail complex has been owned by VIA Outlets since January 2017, when it purchased it from the fund Irus European Retail Property. With a surface area spanning 16,400 m2, Sevilla Fashion Outlet has already started the work to recondition and expand the complex’s parking area.

Founded in 2014 as a joint venture between  APG, Hammerson, Value Retail and Meyer Bergman, VIA Outlets has seen rapid growth in the real estate retail market. In just four years, the group has acquired eleven centres around Europe and, recently, it recruited two new senior managers. They were Otto Ambagtsheer (formerly of Unibail-Rodamco), who has been appointed as the Operations Director, and Peter Stals (formerly Blackrock),  who is the company’s new Finance Director (…).

The portfolio of VIA Outlets spans a gross leasable area (GLA) of more than 259,000 m2 and is home to more than 850 brands across the nine European countries in which it has a presence. In 2017, the group’s eleven centres recorded sales of more than €1 billion and were visited by more than 30 million people.

Original story: Eje Prime (by Jabier Izquierdo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Several Investment Funds Interested in Buying the Torre Sevilla Complex

4 October 2018

CaixaBank has invested 320 million euros in the skyscraper, the commercial centre, the CaixaForum and the Fernando de Magallanes park.

Several international investment funds have signalled interest in a possible acquisition of the Torre Sevilla, a commercial, office and cultural complex in which CaixaBank has invested 320 million euros through the company Puerto Triana. The funds have sounded out the bank “, but no sales process is underway,” sources at CaixaBank stated.

“CaixaBank sees the Torre Sevilla as the crown jewel of the south of Spain, and it is true that it is not a strategic asset for the bank. However, now the whole building is now in the launching phase and still has a long way to go,” the same source noted, stating that no defined sales plan exists for the complex. The company expects to increase the complex’s profitability in the coming years, after a process of consolidation and an increase in rents.

Although there are no plans for a sale, the success of the project has attracted the attention of potential buyers. “The truth is that some investment funds are interested… in such a unique project, but… the sales process has not begun.”

Antonio Cayuela, the sole administrator of Puerto Triana, the owner of Torre Sevilla, as well as president of BuildingCenter, CaixaBank’s real estate company, already told ABC last July that “right now there are no plans to sell, which does not mean that we won’t do it in the future. What we have done is make it valuable for Sevilla and complete the commitment we had with the city.”

“The truth is that our main and only mission during this time has been to start the project. We have not had much time to think about other things. It is true that we have had other shopping centres that we have sold, finished or unfinished, which came to us due to bad loans,” Mr Cayuela said.

For its part, on the same day as the inauguration of the Torre Sevilla shopping centre on September 26, Rafael Herrador, the regional director for CaixaBank in western Andalusia, recalled that “in the middle of the economic crisis, CaixaBank invested 320 million euros in this project. CaixaBank decided that it was an important challenge and that we had to deliver on our commitment to Sevilla. The only solution we saw was to finalise the project and generate value for Sevilla.”

Mr Herrador said that their expectations for the shopping centre “have not only been met but have been overcome. With the opening of the shopping centre to the public, the development of the Torre Sevilla complex has concluded.”

The Torre Sevilla shopping centre has received more than 350,000 visits since it opened a week ago. Only the first day, the shopping mall received 61,000 visits, with queues forming at the first Primark store in Sevilla, persisting to this date. It has been the best inauguration for the low-cost Irish fashion house apart from those in Madrid and Barcelona. The shopping centre expects to receive 8 million visits every year. For the time being, the inauguration has led to the creation of 1,600 jobs, 250 of them at Primark.

For its part, CaixaForum, which is a lessee at the Torre Sevilla, has received more than 300,000 visits since its opening. Moreover, the office tower has also already rented its 37 floors.

The skyscraper has 50,000 of the gross leasable area. When the bank began to market it, Spain was just beginning to emerge from the economic crisis, and many buildings on the Cartuja island were empty. CaixaBank set a very attractive rental price and managed to fill the skyscraper: 15 euros per square meter per month, without condominium fees. 1,500 people now work in the tower, although it has the capacity for 1,800.

Hotusa’s five-star hotel Eurostars Torre Sevilla occupies floors 19 to 37 of the skyscraper. The other floors of the skyscraper are leased by top-level companies, such as Ayesa, Active Business & Technology, a Microsoft partner; Aenor; the technology consultancy Chakray; the Optima software company; Orange; Everis; Deloitte and the Seville Chamber of Commerce, among others.

Original Story: abcdesevilla

Translation: Richard Turner

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

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

A Blow to Sevilla’s Retail Sector: Plans for Alcora Shopping Centre Cancelled

21 September 2018 – Eje Prime

Sevilla has lost one of its major post-crisis commercial projects. In the end, the Alcora shopping centre, promoted by Grupo Tremon, is not going to open its doors, even though its construction was announced in 2014 with a planned investment of €167 million, according to reports from Europa Press.

The plots on which the shopping centre was going to be constructed, which have a combined surface area of 23,000 m2, are located next to the headquarters of Canal Sur TV in San Juan de Aznalfarache. The plan envisaged by Grupo Tremon involved a 3-storey building plus two levels of underground parking with capacity for 1,300 vehicles.

In 2014, the plenary of the Sevillan town hall approved a modification to the urban regulations so that the work for the construction of the complex, located on the Aljarafe cornice, could be undertaken. The views over the Guadalquivir and Sevilla were going to take centre stage in Alcora, which envisaged a large square with a lookout over the Sevillan capital.

Tough competition

Nevertheless, the collapse of this commercial project contrasts with the good times that the commercial sector is experiencing in Sevilla. The imminent opening of Torre Sevilla (the fifth tallest building in Spain after the iconic Cuatro Torres in Madrid) by CaixaBank, will be followed in the spring by the Lagoh shopping centre, Grupo Lar’s big gamble in the Sevillan retail sector.

This latter complex (initially called Palmas Altas) is going to become the largest commercial space in the city, with a surface area of more than 100,000 m2. The investment in this project by Lar España will amount to €250 million.

Original story: Eje Prime

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

Sevilla: The Slow Re-awakening of the Real Estate Sector in the Andalucían Capital

2 August 2018 – Eje Prime

Sevilla, the third largest Spanish city by population, is seeing the first signs of recovery in its residential market (…).

The capital of Andalucía, which is home to almost 690,000 inhabitants, has seen its population decrease on a gradual basis since 2012 when it exceeded 702,000 inhabitants. The slow but progressive decline of the population is probably one of the reasons why house prices have not risen there and why new builds account for an all but residual percentage of the market.

Nevertheless, some of the data does indicate that Sevilla is jumping on the bandwagon in terms of the improvements in the real estate market that are being seen across Spain: a sharp increase in prices in 2017, an on-going rise in sales and, finally, investment in the city by groups of the calibre of Habitat and Ayco.

The city of NO8DO, Sevilla’s traditional motto, saw its population peak at 710,000 inhabitants in 2003, before falling below the 700,000 threshold in 2007. That figure rose above 700,000 again in 2009 before reaching a decade high of 704,000 in 2010, but it has fallen continuously since then to the current figures.

Real estate dynamism

Despite that, the dynamism in terms of house purchases has been considerable in recent years. In 2013, operations in the sector were still registering strong decreases, with a fall that year of 24.4% to just 4,715 house sales. However, the rises have been unwavering since then: up by 12.1% in 2014; 11.3% in 2015; 15.1% in 2016 and 14.1% in 2017, with a total of 7,732 sales.

According to data from the Ministry of Development, during the first quarter of this year, 2,234 house sales were recorded in the city, of which more than 95% corresponded to second-hand homes. With just 98 sales, new homes accounted for just 4.4% of the residential activity during the first quarter.

Nevertheless, and despite this growing activity in terms of sales, residential prices in Sevilla remain stagnant. In recent years, average appraisal prices per square metre in the fourth quarter of each year have decreased steadily, with the exception of 2014 only, when they rose by a measly 0.3% (…).

Currently, house prices amount to €1,468.70/m2 on average (€1,754,40/m2 for new builds and €1,464/m2 for homes aged five years or more). That value is 26.3% lower than the prices in Sevilla in 2012 and 35.9% lower than the peaks of 2007, before the outbreak of the crisis, when the average house price amounted to €2,316.10/m2.

Governed by the socialist Juan Espadas since June 2015, the weight of social housing in the city is greater than that of many other Spanish cities, at least based on data for the first quarter of 2018. In this sense, 177 of the purchases recorded in the city between January and March involved social housing properties, which accounted for 7.9% of the total.

New projects

Habitat is one of the companies that has invested in the Sevillan market this year. In July, the property developer announced a €30 million investment in a new development in the Andalucían capital comprising 199 homes. The acquired land is located in Mairena del Aljarafe, one of the fastest growing areas in the local residential market (…).

Another active player in the city is Ayco, which has acquired a batch of buildable plots this year in the municipality of Camas (Sevilla). In total, that company has purchased land spanning 18,000 m2, where it plans to build around 200 homes.

Another emerging business for the city is the office market, which closed 2017 with 919,173 m2 of space leased, up by 4% YoY, and approaching the records of 2013, according to a report by the Sevilla-based consultancy Inerzia (…).

In the commercial sphere, the Torre Sevilla project is the most important in the city at the moment. Six years after inheriting this macro-project, CaixaBank has let 100% of the office space and the shopping centre is on the verge of opening its doors.

Aenor, Deloitte, Everis, Orange and the Chamber of Commerce are some of the entities present in the 18-storey office block, which account for just half of the skyscraper. The rest of the tower is occupied by a hotel managed by Eurostars, belonging to the Hotusa Group.

Original story: Eje Prime (by C. De Angelis)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Torre Sevilla Shopping Centre to Open in September with 92% Occupancy Rate

20 July 2018 – Eje Prime

Torre Sevilla is getting ready to open with almost a full house. The complex in the city of Sevilla, which will open its doors in just two months time, has commercialised 92% of its space. In recent weeks, the managers of the complex have agreed the entry of several new operators.

In the field of fashion, H&M, Parfois and the jewellery chain Time Road are going to open stores in Torre Sevilla, following in the footsteps of other groups such as Primark, Mango, Women’s Secret, Springfield, Calzedonia and Foot Locker, amongst others.

The shopping centre has also announced the arrival of the supermarket chain Día, as well as several telecoms operators, including Movistar and Vodafone. The gastronomic offer is going to comprise companies such as Udon, Vips, La Tagliatella, Burger King and the bakery chain Granier.

The opening of the complex will complete the Torre Sevilla architectural project, in which CaixaBank has invested more than €320 million. In addition to a shopping centre, Torre Sevilla contains an office block, the Eurostars Torre Sevilla hotel, CaixaForum Sevilla and Magallanes Park.

Designed by the Argentinian architect César Pelli, the retail complex comprises two large buildings, which span a gross leasable area (GLA) of 26,700 m2 and a constructed surface area of 43,000 m2.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake