The reclassification of the Real Madrid sports city in Valdebebas will allow the construction of an office area equivalent to two of the Four Towers of Castellana. But it is not only planned to build these types of spaces. The Madrid City Council has planned the construction of offices, hotels, a private hospital, student residences, educational centers, shops and flex-living homes there. The consulting firm Savills, in the economic report of the file for modifying the general plan that affects this plot, estimates that the necessary cost for construction will be 1,235 million euros.
The majority of this investment, 795 million, will go to the private equipment part, which may include a hospital, educational centers and student residences, as well as an auditorium and other cultural infrastructure.
In the case of the tertiary sector, Savills estimates the cost of constructing offices, hotels, shops and what is known as flex-living at €388 million, which consists of rental homes with a stay of less than 12 months that are built on tertiary land and are regulated by accommodation standards. Finally, 51.9 million will go to new sports facilities and a sports club, according to the public economic report on the website of the city council led by José Luis Martínez-Almeida.
As this newspaper published yesterday, the project initially approved on July 30 by the Governing Board of the Madrid council, provides for the reclassification of 448,000 square meters of buildable space on the Madrid plot from being a sports facility to having a lucrative use, while maintaining 89,000 meters for the club's sports facilities, compared to the 360,000 in the current plan. In May of last year, Florentino Pérez, president of Real Madrid, presented together with Isabel Díaz Ayuso, president of the Community of Madrid, and Martínez-Almeida the Madrid Innovation District project, to give an alternative use to the land that is currently unused in the sports city of Valdebebas.
Both the city council and the regional Executive will still have to approve this modification of the General Urban Planning Plan (PGOU), within a period that may extend until 2027.
In this economic report, Savills also points out that after the reclassification, the land in the sports city would be worth 360 million, compared to an unknown valuation of a current unused land.
At the moment, Real Madrid's business plan regarding this new campus is unknown. In the previous urban rezoning from which the White House benefited, in 2001, it sold the land of its former sports city of Castellana, where the Four Towers currently stand. In the real estate sector, it is expected that Pérez will now do the same thing again, selling the land to potential investors who want to develop the different properties.
It is more complicated for the club to invest in construction - due to the cost of 1,235 million -, although experts predict that it could remain as a minority partner - contributing the land - in some of the businesses to receive rental income over time, as Atlético de Madrid has done in some of the assets of its sports city next to the Metropolitano.
Need
The report prepared by Savills justifies the need for different uses, such as the new 100,000 square meters for offices. “Valdebebas meets unique conditions to consolidate itself as the next major office center in the capital.” It has what the market within the M-30 can no longer offer: land to develop large-scale projects", in addition to its connectivity, "already notable for its proximity to the airport" and which will be reinforced by the expansion of Metro line 11.
This part of offices is the one that has raised the most doubts in the sector, since in that neighborhood there is the Valdebebas Fintech District, with land for 1.2 million square meters of offices and which, however, has not attracted companies. Much more central is the development of Madrid Nuevo Norte, next to the Chamartín station, where it is planned to build 1.6 million square meters of tertiary services, mainly large office towers.
In the case of a private hospital, Savills concludes in the report that the analysis of the Madrid healthcare market shows a structural mismatch between rapidly expanding demand and limited hospital supply. “The Community of Madrid has a ratio of beds per inhabitant lower than the OECD average and very far from that of the best-equipped European health systems, with a provision that has barely grown at the rate of the population,” it is noted. "In this context, the development of new hospital and private clinic infrastructure in Madrid responds to a solid and proven market logic: a broad, growing demand base with the ability to pay; an insufficient supply with an evident path of expansion," he adds.
Likewise, it justifies in the structural demand the need for student residences and the high growth of students would support, where appropriate, international schools and private bilingual centers.
