Barcelona creates fund to buy 'emblematic and strategic' businesses at risk of disappearing

Barcelona Mayor, Jaume Collboni, announced the creation of a fund to acquire commercial properties in order to "preserve their activity" in the city's neighborhoods. He made the announcement Friday at the opening of the European Forum of Cities and Local Trade, held at the Palau de Pedralbes in Barcelona. 

Collboni said the fund would target businesses that must remain open "because of the role they play in a commercial area or because they provide a necessary service." 

Miquel Sàmper, Catalonia's Minister for Enterprise and Employment, who also spoke at the opening ceremony, said that a working group will be formed with city councils to develop "a legal framework" allowing them to exercise rights of trial and retraction over properties considered to be of general interest.

The mayor emphasized the importance of preserving "commercial and strategic" businesses in the city, not only for their location and the role they play, but because "they are part of history." 

He pointed to stores "where our grandparents and parents used to shop … because they were the go-to store." Collboni first raised the idea in an interview with the Catalan News Agency (ACN), in which he also proposed regulating commercial rents.

Collboni did not specify a budget for the fund but said the measure would take effect before the end of the year. He also said he would announce something involving a specific business in the city later this year.

The mayor said that in order for city councils to "intervene, especially in cases involving emblematic and strategic businesses," they need the ability to "directly acquire" them. 

He noted the approach "is not new," pointing out that Paris has been using a similar model for 10 years. He said a working group with the Catalan government and city councils will "study and promote the necessary legislative changes" to allow local governments to exercise rights of trial and retraction. 

He described the measure as "a surgical scale model" meant to apply only in specific cases.

Sàmper said the initiative "must allow this proposal to be carried out" and stressed that it should be carried out through shared governance with municipalities. The measure is part of what he called the Plan for the Protection of Strategic Commercial Hubs of Catalonia, which aims to "study, analyze and evaluate new tools for preservation and reinforcement of the most relevant commercial spaces" and that officials "do not want them to disappear."

Sàmper said the plan is aimed at "emblematic" businesses, noting "there aren't hundreds of them per square meter," and stressed that any funding allocated should be "adjusted to reality." 

He also clarified that the right of trial and retraction "in no case harms the owner's right to obtain a fair price," explaining that the tool allows the government to improve "the last offer" made for a property.