Before the old El Corte Inglés on Francesc Macià closed at the beginning of 2021, its supermarket, located in the underground floor, was still doing well, compared to the other floors. Without forgetting the neighbors or the office workers in the area, the distribution group has opted to return to the property, now converted into Aura, an office building owned by AM Gestió, the family office of businessman Pedro Alonso Agüera, former owner of the automotive components company Infun. The chain has set up shop on the lower floors, with a large-format supermarket covering an area of 2,400 square meters. Since 2010, the chain had not opened a center of these dimensions in Catalonia, limiting openings to smaller stores of the brand such as Supercor or Sfera.
Independent of the office building, where Sephora has also been located, the supermarket, which will open its doors this Thursday, has direct access from Buenos Aires street. On the ground floor, it features a Club del Gourmet store, where a bar and a couple of tables with capacity for 30 diners have been set up. On the lower floor, there is the supermarket, with more than 20,000 references, a thousand of which correspond to its private label, defined as premium.
The establishment features spaces from brands such as Nomo group's sushi, Viñals butcher shop, Vidal Pons' fruit and vegetables, La Real's bulk pickles, and Joselito's Iberian ham. At the entrance, you'll find Baluard bakery. One of the most prominent areas is dedicated to prepared dishes, clearly designed for all the surrounding office workers. With 180 references, such as rice dishes, salads, croquettes, and meatballs, prices range from 3 euros to 8 euros per dish.
The store will have hours from 9 in the morning until 9:30 at night from Monday to Saturday, while on Sundays, during the summer season, it will be open from 12 noon until 8 at night. The supermarket has a staff of 123 employees, some of whom worked at the old El Corte Inglés, built by Sears and acquired by Galerías Preciados. After the purchase by AM Gestió in mid-2019 for 152 million euros, the company invested 40 million in the comprehensive renovation of the property.
More openings in Barcelona and its metropolitan area
The Francesc Macià supermarket fits into the new format that the chain is promoting, with which they aspire to compete with other brands that are a few streets away, such as Lidl, Aldi, Dia, Plusfresc or Mercadona. Away from Supercor or Hipercor, this type of premises is characterized by being unlinked from large shopping centers, being located at street level, having an area that moves between 2,000 and 2,500 square meters, and having a supermarket area, prepared dishes and Club del Gourmet. The first to open is in Sotogrande (Cádiz) and, in a few days, the third will be inaugurated in San Lorenzo del Escorial (Madrid).
Sources from El Corte Inglés indicate that they plan to have more establishments of this type in Barcelona and its metropolitan area, where they are already looking for locations. The one on Buenos Aires street is the first supermarket that is located in a large city and has been built from scratch, since those in Cádiz and Madrid are reconversions of old Supercor premises. In the Catalan capital, that scenario is ruled out, taking into account that the few premises of this brand that are still open have a limited area, of about 400 square meters. With about twenty Supercor stores distributed between Catalonia and the Balearic Islands, those that were close to the chain's shopping centers were closed, converted into Carrefour Express.