El Corte Inglés has sold one of its emblematic buildings in Barcelona, the Portal de l'Àngel shopping center. Just over 100 meters away from the one in Plaza Catalunya, the establishment on the street with the highest commercial traffic in Spain had been losing momentum. With a surface area of 18,000 square meters, small for the department store format, it had ended up specializing in sports fashion, but it hadn't quite caught on, nor had more recent reformulations, such as the arrival of Samsung and the sports brand Under Armour on the ground floor.
The commercial group led by Marta Álvarez put the Portal de l'Àngel building, the former Almacenes Jorba, up for sale a year ago, with the expectation that the offer it provides would be covered by El Corte Inglés in Plaza Catalunya, a strategy that the company already followed with the sale of the Francesc Macià building, concentrating efforts on the one in Maria Cristina. As happened in Francesc Macià, the relocation of the workers from the Portal de l'Àngel shopping center is contemplated, a figure that stands at 200 employees. The company also divested itself of the building it had in Plaza Catalunya previously occupied by Banco Central, where Primark has replaced it.
The sale operation finally materialized this Monday. The Portal de l'Àngel building has been acquired by the joint venture Redevco Iberian Ventures, formed by the Dutch real estate manager Redevco and the American real estate fund Ares Management. Redevco finds its origins in a textile warehouse created at the end of the 19th century that ended up opening clothing stores and becoming the fashion brand C&A. The real estate manager has been investing with Ares Management in Spain since 2015, making notable purchases such as that of the San Miguel market in Madrid in 2017.
With no closing date yet planned for the shopping center, the new owners of the Portal de l'Àngel property plan to renovate it when it happens. In total, combining the purchase and the works, they will allocate an investment of 200 million euros. They contemplate converting it into a sustainable mixed-use building, with floors dedicated to prime retail and office floors, rejecting projects that had been previously considered, such as its transformation into a hotel or luxury housing. "The objective of Redevco Iberian Ventures is to reposition the emblematic building, in the center of Barcelona, including sustainability criteria and offering differentiated services for its tenants," the joint venture stated in a press release.
In the operation, the consultancy JLL and the law firm Pérez Llorca advised Redevco Iberian Ventures, while Cushman & Wakefield and Cuatrecasas acted as advisors to El Corte Inglés.
After the recent sales of emblematic buildings such as those in Francesc Macià and Portal de l'Àngel, both acquired when El Corte Inglés absorbed Galerías Preciados, the chain maintains its reference commercial establishments in the Catalan capital in Plaza Catalunya and Maria Cristina. They also have the Hipercor in Meridiana and El Corte Inglés in Can Dragó, as well as stores in Cornellà de Llobregat, Sabadell, Girona, and Tarragona. The offer is completed with SuperCor supermarkets, Sfera own-brand stores, and Viajes El Corte Inglés branches.