Aena’s plan to develop the airport city of Barajas comes back to life. The manager of the national aerodromes plans to approve before the end of the year and launch during the first quarter of 2025 the second attempt to promote the land surrounding the Madrid airport, as confirmed elEconomista.es with different market sources.
This real estate logistics plan, which will involve an investment of more than 100 million, already attracted the interest of large players such as Segro, P3, Logicor, Merlin Properties and Goodman, but ended up being rejected by all of them after credit conditions tightened worldwide and jumped their business estimates blown up.
The idea of the listed semi-public company directed by Maurici Lucena involves putting a first package of land back on the market, equivalent to 12% of the total 2.1 million square meters available. But this time it will be under a new management formulasince this was also a critical point that led investors to reject the project.
Thus, if the original plan contemplated the establishment of a joint venture (joint venture) together with the successful bidder, Now Aena is leaning towards the formula of landlord, where a single owner acquires the land and will manage it directly in exchange for assuming all the financial and operational risk, something similar to the Madrid Nuevo Norte operation.
Aena’s original idea contemplated that it, which provided the land, would share 35% of the ownership of a joint venture with its partner and obtain a return in the form of recurring income, in line with what the Amsterdam airport previously did. Schiphol (Netherlands).
That company would be the owner of the right to surface the land for a period of 75 years, and the investor would have to make two contributions, one in the form of investments and the other in money to balance the distribution of the company. According to the same sources, An initial concession of 50 years is now contemplated, which would make the investment profitable..
On the other hand, they point out that Aena’s intention is that in this second round the process is more agile and does not extend to 8 months, as happened on the first occasion. In addition, They opt for a more flexible tender that “respecting Aena’s legal model, allow certain modifications and negotiations once the project is awarded“, something that was not included in the previous document, they explain.
Project adjustment
The reconversion of the entire airport environment includes the creation of a state-of-the-art logistics park, with offices, green areas, sports and activities associated with aviation in the airport environment. Aena’s idea was to structure the project into three development axes: a first area dedicated to logistics and air cargo with warehousing, crossdocking and BPO activities; a second for aircraft support; and a third where offices, hotels and commercial spaces would coexist.
The first tender launched by Aena did not cover all the available land, but was limited to a first area of around 12% of the total. Internally known as ‘Area 1’, it was limited to 280,000 square meters of surface area and 152,914 square meters of maximum buildable area next to the A-2 highway. In the new process that will be launched next year, it is expected that the surface area will be somewhat smaller, since Aena would be studying allocating one of the plots as a loading area.
The airport manager then considered that these logistics lands were “located in a premium area with high demand and high economic value.”
The plans of the company controlled 51% by the State through Enaire contemplated that 25% of the surface – about 119 hectares – of this future Airport City would be developed in 2026, a milestone now impossible to meet. In the summer of 2022, the Aena Board of Directors saw how The different winners of the development of this first area were falling out of the plan one by one. The best-positioned company, Segro (owned by the Canadian fund PSP), did it first.
This was followed by Logicor (CIC and Blackstone), with which an agreement was also not reached; and P3 Logistics Group, owned by Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund. Goodman and Merlin, the latest candidates, were also not convinced by the new macroeconomic context caused by the rise in interest rates.
Currently, Barajas already has more than 30 hectares developed with complementary activities, such as cargo ships, hangars or handling maintenance areas that occupy 270,000 square meters. The last companies to join were Air Europa, which inaugurated a hangar in January; Ryanair, which rented another; and the Spanish-Peruvian company Andino Global, which won the competition to build a new 14,000 square meter cargo terminal and operate it for 30 years.
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