The real estate asset manager AEW, on behalf of the French fund Actipierre Europe SCPI, has purchased the Alcora Plaza retail park from Goldman Sachs Asset Management. The park located in Parque Oeste, in Alcorcón, is the largest commercial hub in the south of Madrid, and is located next to the A-5 and the M-50.
Alcora Plaza was inaugurated in November 2020 with 16,400 square meters divided into 14 stores, including a restaurant area. The park is currently at 95% occupancy and has a highly diversified commercial mix, anchored by leading firms such as Lidl, Guaw, Milbby, TAO, Taco Bell or Popeyes, and will soon have new operators such as Jysk or The Fitzgerald.
Goldman Sachs Asset Management sells this asset after acquiring the former IKEA store in 2017 and extensively refurbishing the asset to transform it into a multi-tenant retail park. The real estate consultant Cushman & Wakefield has been in charge of advising Goldman Sachs in this operation, as it also did with the sale of the IKEA store and subsequent repositioning. According to the consultancy, "this operation demonstrates the good market moment that Retail Parks continue to experience thanks to the resilience shown during the pandemic, and shows that there are still opportunities for repositioning."
In addition to Cushman & Wakefield, Goldman Sachs has also been advised by Uría Menéndez (legal). For its part, the buyer has been advised by Baker McKenzie (legal), Hollis (technical) and Savills (commercial).
The fund manager AEW has 1,100 million euros in assets under management in Spain, including another 6 commercial assets located in cities such as Madrid, Cádiz, Santander, Pamplona, Valencia and Tarragona. In line with AEW's commitment to improve the sustainability measures of its commercial real estate investments, several initiatives are planned, such as the installation of photovoltaic solar panels, a BMS system and a stormwater recovery system. In addition, AEW will seek to have the asset add to its existing ESG credentials and achieve ISO 50001 energy management certification and Cradle2Cradle certification. The asset already has an EPC A rating for C02 emissions and B for energy consumption.
Retail parks manage to attract an investment of €135 million in 2022
According to data from the real estate consultancy C&W, retail parks in Spain were able to attract a volume of around €180M in investment in 2021. In these first months of 2022, around €135M have already been transacted in this type of asset, and there are currently more than ten parks in the pipeline that could represent an additional €300M for this year.
In terms of new developments in retail parks, almost 120,000 sqm of new surface area is expected to be delivered by 2022 and another 160,000 sqm during 2023. In accumulated terms, this new surface area will represent an increase of 8.4% until the end of 2023. With With these new surfaces, the commercial density of retail parks will go from 70 to 76 sqm/1,000 inhabitants, even so, it will continue to be below other countries such as the United Kingdom (158 sqm/1,000 inhabitants) or France (120 sqm/1,000 inhabitants). This means that the Spanish market still has a way to increase the area in this segment.
