Barcelona rents continue to rise, according to Jordi Guerrero, associate partner with Healey & Baker.
Guerrero puts highest rents at Pts13,500 per m2 a month in the best pitches along Portal y l’Angel. Rents in Pelayo are a bit lower. “There is a lack of space available and premiums are high,” he says. “The trend now is in the growth of the market because a lot of operators are coming to Spain. We foresee this rental level being maintained for at least the next year.”
Martin Breeden, associate director at Jones Lang LaSalle, says that Barcelona usually pips Madrid as occupiers’ most-favoured location. “It’s seen as more European than purely Spanish,” he says. “It’s closer to France and the Italian market – a function of geography. Also, the prime pitches are longer in this city than in Madrid.”
Troubled UK retailer Marks & Spencer still plans to go ahead with the opening of a Barcelona store on Plaza Catalunya this year.
Stephen Roberts, European retail development director for developer Chelverton, left Marks & Spencer in February. “We did a survey of the Barcelona retail scene at Marks & Spencer,” he says. “It’s very fragmented: a city with a shop on each corner.”
Roberts identified three retail centres with little or no customer cross-over: Diagonal Mar, Plaza Catalunya and Las Glorias. “These are the optimum locations to go for.”
