The Russian Group ‘Golf Estate’ Purchases the San Roque Golf Club

5 April 2019 – Europa Sur

The Russian company Golf Estate has acquired the golf course and clubhouse at The San Roque Club, located in the urbanisation of Sotogrande, in the province of Cadiz.

The company plans to make significant investments in the course, including reforming one of the two courses (the Old Course) and converting the iconic Tony Jacklin clubhouse into a boutique hotel.

Golf Estate is a golf development and marketing company and is the largest intermediary of golf operations and management in Russia.

The news of the purchase has been welcomed by the mayor of San Roque, Juan Carlos Ruiz Boix (pictured above) as it means that the jobs of the golf course’s 52 employees will be guaranteed.

Original story: Europa Sur (by Alberto Rodríguez)

Translation/Summary: Carmel Drake

Avintia Invests €50M to Build 38 Luxury Homes in Baqueira

17 March 2019 – El Confidencial

Baqueira Beret is Spain’s most exclusive ski resort but no new urbanisations have been built there for more than 30 years because there is hardly any land left.

Nevertheless, a few months ago, the Avintia Group purchased the last major block of buildable land, spanning 60,000 m2, where it is planning to build the town’s most luxurious development yet: 38 homes with starting prices of €2 million at the foot of the mountain. Half of the properties have already been reserved and the group expects to invest more than €50 million in the project, known as Pleta Arriu.

All of the homes, which will measure between 350 m2 and 470 m2, will have direct access to the slopes and no expense will be spared in terms of luxury. Each property will be equipped with a swimming pool, spa, sauna, cinema room, ski room and elevator, given that the homes will have five storeys. The design will be contemporaneous and the homes will have huge windows for light with spectacular views of the Arán Valley.

Original story: El Confidencial (by E. Sanz)

Translation: Carmel Drake

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

Operación Chamartín’s Secret Contract: Adif Sells 1.2 million m2 of Public Land at Half its Market Value

27 December 2018 – El Diario

For 25 years, the agreement has remained a secret. It is the document that supports one of the largest urban development projects in Madrid in one of the most sought-after areas of the capital, in the north of the city, to continue the Castellana, where the financial district and the most expensive homes and offices are located, which are being sold for more than €5,000/m2. The contract is going to be signed on Friday. On the one hand, Adif, the public company that forms part of the Ministry of Development and that manages the railway infrastructure, and on the other, Distrito Castellana Norte, a property developer that has changed its name repeatedly over the last quarter of a century.

In 1993, the Ministry of Development, chaired at the time by Josep Borrell, now the Foreign Minister, signed an agreement with the construction firm San José and BBVA to develop the railway land reserved for Chamartín station. That agreement, whose term has been extended several times, has been kept under lock and key until today. The property developer filed several lawsuits to prevent it from being published.

However, eldiario.es is now exclusively publishing the latest draft of the agreement, which reveals the economic conditions of the project, which is reportedly the largest urban development project in Europe: the sale of 1.278 million m2 for homes and offices. On Friday, the definitive agreement will be signed, confirm sources at Adif, which has been blessed by the municipal planning of Manuela Carmena’s government and which will see the disposal of public buildable land for a price of €769.5/m2 in that area to the north of Madrid, the expansion area of the financial district, one of the most expensive parts of the capital.

Sources in the real estate sector claim that the agreed value represents half the market price at which other plots in the same area have been sold recently. In January, the same vendor, Adif, put another plot up for sale, further north, in San Sebastián de los Reyes, outside of the capital, which was sold for €1,500/m2 to a real estate cooperative: €16.3 million for 1,500 m2.

The gigantic plot that Adif is going to sell to Distrito Castellana Norte (DCN), formed by the construction firm San José and BBVA, groups together 1.27 million m2 of land, according to the current contract. For that space, DCN is going to pay €984.2 million, which represents a price of less than €769.5/m2 excluding the financial interest corresponding to the payment over 20 years.

Hours after eldiario.es published the contents of the agreement, Adif issued a statement confirming that the cost that the private partners (…) will pay for the operation is above market prices. To reach this conclusion, the public company (…) is taking the price of the land and adding the interest that will be paid for 20 years (3% each year), the budget for the urbanisation of the plot and even the transfer of the land that the law obliges to the property developer: 100,000 m2 for public housing that Adif estimates at €67.4 million.

In September, the Government of Manuela Carmena approved the general plan to authorise the urban development of the so-called Operación Chamartín. In the accompanying financial report, the only official estimate that exists, the Town Hall of Madrid calculates a land value that is three times higher than the figure that Adif is going to receive. In that document, Manuela Carmena’s Government establishes that the sale of the whole reclassified area (which groups together twice as much land as mentioned above and which also involves other landowners) “would amount to €3.749 billion in total”. The price established in that financial report corresponds to 2.6 million m2 of that urban development. According to those accounts, the price per m2 equates to €1,407/m2, well below the €769/m2 that Adif is going to receive (…).

Original story: El Diario (by Fátima Caballero)

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

Madrid’s Town Hall to Approve the Mahou-Calderón Project

18 July 2018 – Eje Prime

The Mahou-Calderón project is pushing ahead. Tomorrow (Thursday), the Town Hall of Madrid is going to approve the urban development plan for the land, one of the most sought-after plots in the Spanish capital. The roadmap for the site, which is still home to the Vicente Calderón stadium, the historical home of Atlético de Madrid, means that the construction work will begin after the summer and will be scheduled for completion within three years.

After the summer, Atlético de Madrid and Mahou, the owners of the batch of land, hope that the period of public consultation will be completed so that they can start to demolish the stadium, according to El Confidencial.

The building work will be divided into three phases, starting with the demolition of the Calderón. Next, and after modifying the traffic flow that passes under the pitch, the roads between Paseo de los Pontones, Paseo Imperial and Paseo de los Melancólicos are going to be urbanised.

The first phase of the project is also going to be the most expensive, with an investment of €22.7 million, half of the total budget established (€42.2 million) for this ambitious urban development plan. The Government of Madrid is going to contribute another €60 million to cover over the road.

The finalists: Solvia, Ibosa and Princeton 

Waiting to see what happens tomorrow in the Town Hall are Solvia, Ibosa and Princeton, the three finalist investors looking to buy the plots, which will expand Madrid’s residential stock by another 33,339 m2 of buildable land, located on a plot with a buildable surface area of 132,344 m2.

The objective of Atlético de Madrid with this project is to raise up to €200 million from the sale operation. The club is planning to use that extraordinary capital to repay Carlos Slim the €160 million loan that he granted the sporting entity to complete the building work on its current stadium, the Wanda Metropolitano.

Original story: Eje Prime 

Translation: Carmel Drake

Gestilar Launches Plan to Address Mallorca’s Scarce Housing Supply

6 July 2018 – Eje Prime

Gestilar is thinking about the Mediterranean. The property developer has started the summer by marketing the first 89 homes that it is building in Mallorca. As part of its €123 million investment plan, the real estate company is going to build 400 homes over the next few years in Palma across three developments in the Nou Llevant area, to the south-east of the city.

Mediterrània 1, the residential development through which the real estate firm has arrived in the Balearic Islands, is going to comprise homes with two, three and four bedrooms. It is designed for locals, both first-time buyers as well as those looking to reposition”, explain sources at Gestilar speaking to Eje Prime.

On an island with a “shortage of structural supply and economic stability”, Mallorca has become “one of the most desirable markets in Europe for investing in the real estate sector”, according to Raúl Guerrero, Director of Developments at Gestilar.

At the end of 2017, the property developer led by Javier García-Valcárcel purchased three plots in the Balearic capital with a total surface area of 55,300 m2. “We set our sights on Palma due to the shortage of new housing projects that have been built there in recent years”, explains Guerrero, who highlights the “the pent-up and unfulfilled demand” that exists in the city.

The first of the developments comprises several four- and seven-story blocks with their ground floors allocated to commercial premises. The design of the project has been entrusted to the Spanish architecture studio L35, which has created an urbanisation with substantial common areas.

Located 500 metres from the beach and the port of Portixol, Mediterrània 1 will have communal spaces with a swimming pool, a gym and a games area for children. The construction of the first phase is due to start between the last quarter of this year and the first quarter of 2019, with the aim of handing over the first keys before the end of 2020.

“There is space for new projects in Palma” 

Gestilar’s interest Palma is not the first from a Spanish residential property developer in recent months. A few days ago, the listed company Aedas Homes put on the market its fourth project in the Balearic capital and several other companies are working to begin projects this year.

This growing interest in Mallorca comes in response to the sales rates on the island that place it at the top of the ranking in the residential sector, behind Madrid and Barcelona. “It is still too early to assess the rates of our own developments, but for the last few months, we have been monitoring and updating our market research, and the results of this analysis reveal a high rate of marketing in the area”, explains Guerrero (…). According to the director of Gestilar, “there is space for new projects in Palma”, where the property developer has already opened an office.

In this regard, the property developer believes that Palma is going to be one of the cities, like Madrid, Barcelona and Bilbao, that will look to improve its positioning abroad. In the Balearic capital, we are seeing a recovery in terms of property development activity, where a significant number of developments have started to be marketed between December 2015 and October 2017, which means that home completions are now growing, according to Gestilar (…).

Original story: Eje Prime (by J. Izquierdo)

Translation: Carmel Drake

La Generalitat to Auction c.20 Homes in Barcelona for €6M

29 May 2018 – Eje Prime

La Generalitat is going to auction off inhabited homes in Barcelona. The Catalan government is going to sell around twenty homes in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat for an asking price of €7.7 million in the first auction and €6.2 million in the second, according to information provided in La Generalitat’s Official Gazette.

The residential portfolio for sale comprises 16 homes and three detached houses, all of which are rental properties and all of which are currently occupied. The auction will be conducted in blocks in order to prevent the tenants from using the right of first refusal over their own homes. Nevertheless, the future owner of the homes is going to have to subrogate the lease contracts.

The apartments for sale are located opposite Plaza Europa and the Gran Vía 2 shopping centre in L’Hospitalet, at numbers 15-23 Calle Ciencies. In those blocks, in addition to the homes, La Generalitat is going to auction off two premises and 23 parking spaces with storerooms. With regard to the detached family homes, they are located on another urbanisation, on Calles Mileva Maric and Hanna Arendt.

The current tenants of the apartments pay between €800, in the case of the homes with the oldest rents, and €1,600 per month for the detached family homes. Each home has a surface area that ranges between 78 m2 and 120 m2 and has two, three or four bedrooms.

The auction, which will see the deadline for the presentation of offers close on 9 July, will be held on the 19th of that same month through Addmeet, the online real estate platform that has already managed other large public sales in other Spanish cities.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake

Spain’s Large Property Developers Own Land to Build 1,500 Homes in Valencia

16 May 2018 – Levante EMV

The four Spanish property developers backed by investment funds that make up the Big Four have acquired large batches of land in Valencia and now own plots on which to build 1,500 homes over the next few months.

The property developers in question are Neinor, Aelca, Aedas and Vía Célere, and they share financial muscle in common, which has allowed them to outperform the competition. The key is that the four firms are listed or are aspiring to make their debuts on the stock market and so they need to quickly grow their portfolio of homes to attract investors. The latest major operation has just been closed by Aelca, which is going to invest €7.5 million in the construction of 62 homes on the PAI de Moreras.

Sources in the sector warn that there is hardly any buildable land left in Valencia and they lament the fact that this is going to result in a “reheating” of prices. The same sources state that land in Patraix, which cost around €200/m2 two years ago is now being sold for €450/m2 due to the voraciousness of the large property developers. “Aelca purchased land in Patraix for €425/m2 and is now costs €450/m2. The large property developers have driven up prices because they need to take positions ahead of their stock market debuts”, say the experts.

In other areas, such as Malilla, Neinor paid €600/m2 for a plot with capacity for 400 homes, and the US fund Harbet Management Corporation (HMC) and its local partner Momentum Real Estate Investment Management (REIM) purchased 30,000 m2 of land in Nou Campanar and Alfahuir for €800/m2. The problem is the impact that this is going to have on the final prices of those homes, given that, according to the experts, they will have to soar above €2,000/m2 to be profitable. “We are going to see homes costing upwards of €220,000. Who can pay those prices in Valencia? What happens to permanent employees who are 40-years old and who can only be granted mortgages of up to €160,000?” ask the same sources.

Aelca – 368 homes

Aelca is a property developer founded in Madrid in 2012. Four years later, a fund from Minneapolis (USA), Värde purchased 75% of that firm. The company arrived in València with two developments comprising 192 homes in Patraix (own) and Nou Campanar (owned by Sareb). Now it is building 44 homes in Malilla (on Calle Isla Formentera), 70 homes in Nou Moles (on Calle Brasil) and 62 homes in the PAI de Moreres. Aelca is also preparing its stock market debut.

Vía Célere – 22 homes

Vía Célere is another property developer linked to the fund Värde that is also preparing to debut on the stock market. Its first development in València is a 22 home building with a swimming pool at number 55 Avenida de la Petxina. The cheapest home there costs €310,900 (€348,703 including costs).

Aedas – 399 homes

Aedas is a listed property developer, controlled by the US fund Castlelake. The firm currently has three developments underway in València where it is going to build 399 homes. The company is going to construct an urbanisation containing 220 homes on a plot on Avenida Maestro Rodrigo (…). In addition, it is building 59 homes in Quatre Carreres. Also, the company has just acquired another plot on Avenida Antonio Ferrandis to build 120 homes (…).

Neinor – 713 homes

Neinor arrived in València in March 2017 and has become the largest landowner in the city with a portfolio for the construction of 713 homes. The property developer, whose main shareholder is the Israeli fund Adar Capital, is currently marketing a 49-home development in Malilla and another 216-home development in Nou Benicalap. It is also working on a 416-home development in Malilla (…) and a 100-home development on Avenida Antonio Ferrandis in Quatre Carreres.

Original story: Levante EMV (by Ramón Ferrando)

Translation: Carmel Drake

Town Hall of Barcelona to Build 150 Social Housing Flats in Former Urban Prison

7 May 2018 – Eje Prime

La Modelo is going to change its colour: it will turn from the grey of its former railings to the green of its new parks and family homes. That is the plan that the Town Hall of Barcelona wants to carry out with the urban prison that said goodbye to its last inmates last June. Since then, the Town Hall has been holding regular meetings with local residents and entities to build social housing properties on the land that has been left in disuse, amongst other aspects. The Town Hall’s current idea is to build 150 flats on a plot of land measuring 15,000 m2.

In total, the prison used to cover a plot measuring 27,657 m2, of which the Town Hall plans to use almost half, 14,000 m2 to develop a park that will add some much needed green space to the Eixample area in which it is located.

The first draft of the plans that the municipal government presented in the most recent meeting is one of three possible plans that the Town Hall is considering. It is the preferred option of the Town Hall led by Ada Colau, who will provide more details about the project in July, according to Idealista.

The work to urbanise the plot is not expected to begin until 2020, and so the plans may well undergo several iterations yet, although all three plans involve building public housing, green space and a section that will serve to preserve the historical memory of the 100-year old prison. What is known at this stage for certain is the amount of investment that the Town Hall is going to allocate to the project: €4.9 million, which has already been included in the current mandate, which ends in 2019.

Original story: Eje Prime

Translation: Carmel Drake