Barcelona is popular with foreign investors despite the economic crisis, Mateu Hernandéz, CEO of Barcelona City Council Economic Promotion, said in an interview with PropertyEU at EXPO REAL. The best example of this is the recent purchase by Deka of a large office building in the financial heart of the Spanish city for EUR 145 mln, the biggest deal in the Spanish market so far in 2010.
Barcelona is popular with foreign investors despite the economic crisis, Mateu Hernandéz, CEO of Barcelona City Council Economic Promotion, said in an interview with PropertyEU at EXPO REAL. The best example of this is the recent purchase by Deka of a large office building in the financial heart of the Spanish city for EUR 145 mln, the biggest deal in the Spanish market so far in 2010.
‘Spain does not have a good economic image,’ Hernandéz said, ‘but Barcelona is seen by investors as a separate market that will recover faster, parallel with the rest of Europe’. Located in the heart of the financial centre at Avenida Diagonal, the 28,500 m2 building is fully let to firms such as PricewaterhouseCoopers, Regus, Caja Madrid and Gomez Acebo y Pombo.
Hernadéz points out that Barcelona is bucking the trend with strong growth at the moment. This is mirrored in the fast growth of the airport that handles 30 million passengers a year. Recently, seven new intercontinental routes were added. ‘It is also apparent in the fact that Barcelona is the number one port for cruises in Europe,' Hernandéz said. The city is also building a high-speed railway line that will link it to Lyon in France in 2.5 hours.
Barcelona’s focus is on the redevelopment of former industrial areas. One of the best examples of this is Parc de L'Alba, an area where around 1.3 million square metres of real estate is possible. The city plans to develop 520,000 m2 of property between now and 2013.
