The urban redevelopment of the Marina del Prat Vermell and Marina del Port areas, 500 hectares straddling Barcelona and L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, has piqued the interest of large companies looking to locate their corporate headquarters and promises to be a new real estate attraction pole in the coming decade. Currently, the now-dubbed Zona Fira accounts for 10% of the office stock in the city of Barcelona, according to a report by real estate consultancy CBRE, an offer that is expected to increase by 20% in the next three years.
Businesspeople and investors are observing this new area to position themselves because it should develop in a balanced way and configure neighborhoods designed to measure for the cities of the future; for being a strategically logistical point ---it is close to the port and the airport---, and because the real estate developments are of high quality. And, beyond the urban planning itself, several projects of a predominantly tertiary nature have been developed in the vicinity of Marina del Prat Vermell ---the expansion of Fira de Barcelona in Gran Via, the Distrito 38 project (where Agbar and the Catalan Tax Agency have their headquarters) and the Generalitat's administrative campus, among others--- that are transforming the territory.
Regarding the current vacancy rate in this area, Xavier Güell, director of CBRE Barcelona, states that it is below the average for the city of Barcelona and that in recent months it has shown itself to be much more resilient than that of other submarkets. The greater office supply that will be registered in the next three years represents "an exponential increase if we consider that the growth experienced in the previous 10 years (2011-2020) was 25%", adds Güell.
Regarding the investments that in the last five years have boosted premium office areas, such as Plaza Europa in L'Hospitalet, the data shows the interest of foreign capital. "From 2010 to 2015, foreign investment in the area represented 22% of the invested volume, but in the last five years it has accounted for 66%", notes Xavier Güell.
The developing area is shaping up with many similarities to the 22@ urban planThe consultancy's report also highlights the possibilities that Marina del Prat Vermell will offer on the more industrial and logistics side. In fact, the developing area is shaping up with many similarities to the 22@ urban plan. "Zona Fira is a great opportunity for the city of Barcelona" and a strategic enclave due to the number of service sector companies that have set up in the area, explains Guell. The director of the consultancy specifies that withthe rise of e-commerce "the last mile" has acquired relevant importanceand a growing demand has already been detected in the vicinity of Barcelona to locate the facilities of the main logistics operators. Nacex, Falck VL, Salvat Logística, are some of the logistics companies located in this area, which coexist with others of a more commercial nature such as Ikea or Saltoki.
Similarly, the new economy promotes industry 4.0 for which the Zona Fira land is interesting. Its proximity to the Zona Franca industrial estate and the strategy of the Consorci de la Zona Franca to promote industry 4.0 projects validate this option.
In the residential area, the most advanced municipal planning, that of Marina del Prat Vermell, occupies an area of 75 hectares —the equivalent of 40 blocks of the Eixample— out of a total of 500 hectares that the Zona Fira covers. It should be remembered that 22@ has an area of 600 hectares. The project includes the construction of 12,000 homes —of which 5,160 will be subsidized housing— in the next decade, adding 28,000 inhabitants to the just over 1,200 residents currently in this neighborhood belonging to the Sants-Montjuïc district. The calculations of the Barcelona City Council point to the creation of between 8,000 and 11,000 jobs. The planning of the Barcelona City Council also includes allocating 11 hectares to facilities and another 13 hectares to green areas.