Category Archives: Commercial property

Catalunya: Tourist figures up; GSM Conference sets new record; Inditex consolidates its presence in the region

Foreign tourist figures for 2011 have shown an increase of nearly 11% on 2010, according to the Spanish Institute of Statistics. Last year, almost 10 million foreigners came to Catalunya, although the number of Spanish tourists was down. Catalan hotels registered a new tourist record for overnight stays (48.029.385), with almost half of them taking place from June to September. Altogether, last year 16.5 million tourists visited Catalunya, coming from abroad and the rest of Spain.

Overnight stays increased by more than 2.7 million compared to 2010.
Barcelona, after Madrid, is the second destination within Spain for volume of overnight stays. The Catalan capital had more than 16 million overnight stays last year, 7.2% more than in 2010.

The visitor increase hints at a positive trend in the growth of tourism after the crises of 2008/9.

In addition, the Port of Barcelona is once again the European leader in the number of transported passengers in 2011, according to data released by the Spanish Ministry of Transport. 2,642,493 people passed through the Catalan capital’s port in 2011, which represents a 12.69% increase compared to 2010. Barcelona is among the world’s top 5 ports.

The annual Mobile World Congress held in Barcelona, set a new record in 2012, attracting 67 thousand participants, up 11% on 2011. The world’s main trade fair and conference on cell phone services and related technology, took place between February 27^th until March 1^st at the Fira in Plaza España. More companies than ever before displayed their products and came from a variety of sectors including healthcare and finance. As a result, the Catalan economy has been boosted by more than 300 million Euros, 25 million Euros more than in 2010. It is expected the MWC will bring a total of 3.5 billion Euros to the Catalan economy until 2018. Next year`s event will move to the Gran Via venue due to its increased popularity. Barcelona will also host the Mobile World Hub, in the technological district 22@ in Poble Nou, which will provide advice to companies, assist start-ups and organize activities worldwide.

The Spanish clothing company Massimo Dutti is relocating to the Catalan coastal town of Tordera where it will have its world headquarters and also the most technically advanced warehouse in Europe. Massimo Dutti is owned by the retail multinational giant Inditex, which also owns Zara, Zara Home, Pull&Bear, Bershka, Oysho, among other brands.
The new office will create jobs in administration, design, and information technology. Inditex set up in Tordera 10 years ago, as a distributor for Massimo Dutti, Oysho and Bershka. The new office will be 30,000 square metres and located just in front of the new distribution warehouse. Construction work is expected to begin immediately and the warehouse is expected to open in the Spring.

In 2011, the Lucas Fox Barcelona Office saw a sharp rise in enquiries about commercial and investment property. This is due to a growth in the number of small businesses and start-ups and also because Barcelona continues to attract professionals willing to relocate for work due its label as Europe’s Number One city in terms of quality if life for employees. Among the International companies based or with offices here are General Electric, Citibank, Avis, Transcom, HP/Deloitte, Colt and Sietel.

For business, Barcelona makes sense as a commercial hub as it has a steady stream of access to international clients, potential customers and industry markets. With the largest number of conference attendance goers in the world, and the second largest number of international business, there is ready access to global markets as business leaders regularly flow through the city to attend corporate events.

Lucas Fox has a wide range of commercial property for sale available.
Here are a selection in Barcelona:

Exclusive 5-storey building for sale in Barcelona’ s Eixample suitable for hotel and high standing residential development

Distressed property being sold by the bank. The building was developed with the intention of reselling but is now on sale for 25% below the original price. Potential to rent or resell.

Large vacant building housing 14 apartments with potential to create a luxury apartment development, 24 tourist apartments with licences or a 70 room 4 star hotel

Building for sale with hotel project in tourist area of Old Town Barcelona

For more information on any of the above properties please contact Aimar Valls on X or email Aimar@Lucasfox.com

Selling a 5* hotel in Barcelona, Spain? We have a buyer

Lucas Fox has a large international 5* chain looking to buy a central prime hotel, in situ, in Barcelona, Spain.

The client’s requirements is that it must be an existing 5* hotel with 10,000 square feet and be in a central prime location.

Please contact us and we will pass on your inquiry to our commercial division, or call us on (+34) 933 562 989.

We are presently looking for all types of hotels for our foreign investors. If you a hotel director or work in the expansion and development division we may help you sell your property in Barcelona or aid you to relocate your business to Barcelona.

All enquiries will be treated as confidential.

Very special property for tourism activities or for a new high standing residential development. | LFCOM080

Lucas Fox Announce The Sale Of An Exclusive Modernist Building In The Eixample District Of Barcelona.

Lucas Fox International Properties today announce the sale of a stunning building with many modernist and artistic features, situated in the highly sought after area of the Eixample, Barcelona. This excellent property for sale in Barcelona comprises five floors and would be ideal for development as offices, apartments or a hotel, giving investors a large range of potential projects.
This spectacular property currently houses retail units on the ground floor and offers an additional five floors. Planning permission has also been granted for the construction of a 6th floor and a smaller 7th floor. A 46 room, four-star hotel project is currently being developed.
Located in the desirable Eixample district of Barcelona, the building is just a few minutes walk from Passeig de Gracia, Barcelona’s luxury shopping area. The Eixample was created in the mid 1890’s after the former medieval city was demolished and is an exclusive residential and shopping district. The property was constructed in 1907 and was awarded a building of the year award for its unique design.
Alex Vaughan, Director of Lucas Fox commented, “This very special property not only has incredible commercial investment potential but is also of great historical and architectural importance. This building is a masterpiece in a highly desirable area of Barcelona.”
This property for sale in Barcelona is priced at 12 million euros and is referenced with us at LFCOM080.
If you would like more information about our real estate in Barcelona, please visit the property for sale in Barcelona section on our website or contact us directly by email or phone.

Business Barcelona: 5 reasons to locate

Thinking of finding a European office for your business? Barcelona commercial property offers specific advantages. Here’s our top 5 reasons why.

1. Accessibility to markets and audience market segments

For business, Barcelona makes sense as a commercial hub as it has a steady stream of access to international clients, potential customers and industry markets. With the largest number of conference attendance goers in the world, and the second largest number of international business events hosted in the city’s world-class conference venues, there is ready access to global markets as C-level decision-makers regularly flow through the city to attend corporate events as speakers, expo reps or event participants.

2. Availability of qualified workforce

There are a number of factors that suggest recruiting a workforce for business in Barcelona is easier than in other European cities:

Barcelona is consistently voted number one as best city “in terms of quality of life for employees” by Cushman and Wakefield’s annual European Cities Monitor survey. This means many qualified staff across Europe are willing to relocate to work for business, Barcelona.
Barcelona has seen massive growth in the number of microbusinesses and new startups with this year figure’s doubling last year’s new business establishments. These businesses make ideal contracted labor force, as a large number of these businesses specialize in professional services, communications, new technologies and administrative and ancillary services.

Properties like this building in Gracia are ideal for setting up business in Barcelona

3. Quality of communication technologies and telecommunications

With close to 97% of the city covered by wifi access, telecommunications is never a problem in the world’s first designated World Mobile City. While this label has been applied to acknowledge the cities’ hosting role until 2018 for the Mobile World Congress, in reality it means an annual calendar of events and business activities aimed at demonstrating the links between telecommunications and urban business environments. The cities’ Barcelona Activa business support strategy has also fostered a strong new media and telecommunications sector to be based in the city.

4. International and city-to-city transport links

Barcelona El Prat airport is an easy 20 minutes from the city center with daily flights to international business locations across Europe and throughout the world, including daily flights to new markets including Sao Paolo, Moscow and Dubai. Inter-city transport links via the comfortable and highspeed AVE train network is surpassed only by Japan in terms of speed and efficiency.

5. Office space that represents value for money

Non-CBD areas represent the best office opportunities for buyers looking to setup their Barcelona business headquarters, with yields at a record high of 7.25% in the second quarter of 2011.

Prime office space in Eixample, Barcelona are in short supply, often with only secondary spaces available. This has led to a market environment in which rents are stabilizing and market predictions have suggested that there will be no further price drops in average rent per metre squared.

For renters, Barcelona CBD averaged 19 euros per square metre at midyear point, while decentralized office spaces were averaging 15.25 euros.

Are you interested in seeing some of the best value office spaces for your business? Barcelona-based Lucas Fox corporate real estate agent, Aimar Valls is available to discuss the best purchase or rental options.

Please share with us in the comments below: Are you looking at setting up or expanding your business in Barcelona? Which of the above five factors are most important to you?

Designs on Barcelona Commercial Property

Global architectural acoustics company Walters-Storyk Design Group announced on 9 September that they are using Barcelona commercial property to establish an office in Spain. This is is yet another example of the high reputation that the city has amongst design firms that work with an international client base.

Lucas Fox has commercial properties for sale that come with interested tenants able to immediately generate a 5% yield

Walters-Storyk already operates from 4 locations around the globe, offering a range of acoustic design and consultancy services to individual, business and government clients. “We are extremely enthusiastic about the potential of the European market and are confident our new German and Spanish offices will enable us to better serve the international corporate, institutional, recording and broadcast communities,” said WSDG co-principal John Storyk at the time of the announcement.

That they are looking to expand their European focus by setting up in Barcelona commercial property makes good business sense for the company. Barcelona has actively pursued international credentials to become one of the top cities of the world with a world-leading design industry based here.

Events over the next few months further entrench the city’s global design leadership:

In October, Barcelona Design Week holds its annual festival and conference activities, this year with a series of urban planning sessions looking at sustainability and recycling.
It is immediately followed by a weekend in which many of the city’s iconic buildings will be open to the public as part of the global Open House series of architectural events.
And then in December, Barcelona again hosts the World Architecture Festival for the second year running.

Barcelona Design Week is ideal for investors looking for new design businesses in Barcelona

Barcelona City Council’s economic development team is seeking to capitalize on the calendar of events by offering a design-themed study tour for international companies and institutions. The Council schedules these international visitor programmes throughout the year, hosting 10 global leaders for 3 days worth of activities aimed at fostering economic bonds and encouraging strategic investment opportunities in key Barcelona business sectors. We imagine visitors will use the chance to assess the Barcelona commercial property market while they are here.

In October, Barcelona Council plans to orient its’ international visitors programme – branded Leading to Barcelona – with a design themed series of activities. Targeting business and design experts in New York, London and from across Europe, the Council hopes to showcase the city’s entrepreneurial energy and business innovation experience with an agenda that will includes a focus on the city’s food technologies sector, share business and governmental urban planning and mobility expertise and promote the city’s emerging creative media sectors.

Creativity in carpets, by Nani Marquina and Erwan Bouroullec will be held on 17 October as part of Barcelona Design Week

It is one of several initiatives aimed at sparking greater investment in the city’s thriving design industries. At Barcelona Design Week from 17-21 October, the city has funded a Pop Up Design Store and Design Ideas Market to ensure there is a platform for local creators and entrepreneurs to meet with potential investors during the annual industry event.

The influx of global design companies wanting to set up operations in the city helps create value for equity and foreign investors interested in the Barcelona commercial property market. The demand for contemporary commercial spaces is strong and even recent developments like the grade A space in the city’s new business and periphery areas are in short supply. This creates an economic environment for steady rental growth for commercial property owners. Lucas Fox market predictions on the stability of the Barcelona commercial property market have recently been supported by other analysts. For example, in a Barcelona commercial property report released earlier this year, Jones Lasang Lasalle forecasted that a landlord-led market will emerge in Barcelona from 2012, a stance Lucas Fox has previously taken.

We wish the Walters-Storyck Design Group every success in their office establishment – a high probability given the leadership team of Robert Alfageme and Marc Viadiu – and look forward to more international design companies scouting the city for their own piece of Barcelona commercial property.

Barcelona and Madrid Office Commercial Property: Demand Up in 2012

New studies into the commercial property market across Europe point to good news for Barcelona and Madrid office property.

Lucas Fox has a number of hospitality commercial properties available at present.

The studies, by Jones Lang Lasalle, look at office commercial property and industrial rental in Barcelona and Madrid.

Barcelona Office Property

High quality office space in prime business areas is in great demand in Barcelona, helping generate a vacancy rate of 13.2%.
On average, office rents are €19 per square meter.
The total expected take up level of office space is expected to reach 250,000 square meters in 2011.

Barcelona Industrial Property

A review of industrial property in 2011 to date indicates that 88,000 square meters was taken up in Barcelona in the first quarter of the year, bringing the vacancy rate down to 17.7%.
Industrial property was leasing at €81 per square meter on average.
The lack of good quality stock in prime areas will sharpen demand, and is expected to influence rental demand growth of greater than 1% in 2012 and 2013.

Madrid Office Property

Vacancy rate in the Madrid office property market is 10.23%.
Average rents in the CBD are €26.75 per square meter and €17 per square meter in secondary areas.

Madrid Industrial Property

Industrial property had a vacancy rate of 13.2% at the end of the first quarter of 2011.
Industrial property was leasing at €66 per square meter on average.
In particular, large high quality industrial properties with floor space greater than 250,000 square metres just isn’t available in the Madrid property market at present.

Lucas Fox currently has a number of commercial properties for sale, especially in the hospitality industry. For more information on commercial property, see the Lucas Fox guide to buying commercial property in Spain.

Spain Retail Ahead In European Property Market

Retail property across Spain is this year’s investment-of-choice for buyers, with continued sales forecasted by European property market analysts.

Analysts agree: Spain leads retail sales in European property market

Thomas Reuters, JP Morgan Chase and CBR Ellis are all pointing to growing interest in Spanish commercial property for investment:

Real estate market monitors Thomas Reuters have surveyed the Spanish mall and retail property market and found strong foreign investment interest in current property prices.
Meanwhile, JP Morgan Chase has been suggesting that Spain represents an “ideal environment for international property investment”, noting that commercial property will be available “at bargain prices in the next 12 months”.
CBR Ellis confirmed that 43% of the 28 billion Euros spent on European property market investment between January and March, was invested in retail properties, with Germany and Spain being the focus for most investors.

European property market trends: Lucas Fox analysis

Stijn Teeuwen, Lucas Fox Director, confirms that the interest in Spain retail property is also observable in commercial property Barcelona transactions: “The main types of commercial properties that international clients are interested in are hotels and retail. We are experiencing particularly strong demand from wealthy private investors from Russia in small operating hotels in Barcelona area.”

Russian property investment interest in Barcelona has been one of the key industry growth drivers this year. Tourist arrival numbers from Russian cities have doubled in the first half of this year, many combining their travels with a look at the European property market here.

There are more than a million households amongst the “mass affluent” class in Russia, each with over $USD425 million in cash assets to spend on commercial property investments. This is in large part due to the low number of Russian households paying off mortgage debt, allowing them to invest in commercial property Barcelona, for example.

Getting a feel for opportunity in commercial property

“Due to the lack of publicly available information, most investors struggle to get a good feel for the market and Lucas Fox assists by offering our experience of the city and recent transactions,” explains Teeuwen.

All analysts are expecting the trend to continue throughout the year, with key buyers such as Henderson Global Investors, BlackRock and Unibail-Rodamco known to be actively looking at acquisition of Spanish retail assets. According to commercial property investors, the Spanish and Barcelona retail and hotel sectors look to be a main focus for the European property market throughout the summer and for the rest of 2011.