The Catalan Government declares the tender to sell 26 buildings for €450 millions null and void
The lack of satisfactory offers has forced the Catalan Government to postpone its plan of selling several buildings off for cheap and losing money. Selling real estate assets is one of the ways the Catalan Government hopes to increase revenue and reduce the public deficit. Since none of the offers reached the minimum expected, the Government has decided to wait and postpone the sale.
Barcelona (ACN).- The spokesperson for the Catalan Government, Francesc Homs, announced on Tuesday after the weekly Cabinet meeting that none of the offers had reached a satisfactory level in the public tender. The Catalan Government has therefore decided to call the tender void in order not to sell the buildings off cheap. It will wait to see how the real estate and financial markets evolve, and the buildings might be back on the market in due course. The Government’s plan was to sell 26 of its buildings for a total amount of €450 million as a way of adding additional revenue and reducing the public deficit. If sold, the Government’s plan was to rent the space and continue occupying the facilities. The buildings were listed as a single pack, and had to be bought together. Among the assets are the headquarters of some of the Catalan ministries, such as Economy and Education.
In the absence of satisfactory offers, the tender’s deadline had in fact already been extended once. On Tuesday the second and definitive deadline to present offers for the 26-building-pack expired. No satisfactory offers had been presented. “We had previously said that if there was a need to adjust our budget we would sell our assets or we would privatise, but there is a limit to that. This limit is not to damage public heritage and not to sell them off cheap”, explained Francesc Homs.
Architectonic gems and top city spots
Some of the buildings in the pack are true architectural gems or they are located in top spots in the Catalan capital. The headquarters of the Catalan Ministry of Economics, located on Gran Via 639, are in an Art Nouveau building, placed in the heart of Barcelona. Another building is the headquarters of the Barcelona Stock Exchange, on the city’s most luxurious boulevard, the Passeig de Gràcia. A third example of the buildings on offer are the seat of the Catalan Ministry of Education, a rationale and relatively modern brick-made building located in one of Barcelona’s most exclusive neighbourhoods (Sant Gerrvasi), in Via August 202.