Colonial, Merlin and Núñez i Navarro are the three most important office owners in Barcelona, ??according to a study carried out by the JLL consultancy which highlights that they are also the only ones with more than 20 buildings each. Its presence, moreover, is particularly strong in specific areas of the city: Núñez is the largest owner in the center of Barcelona, ??while Colonial is in the Center de Negocis or CBD (the promenade area of ??Gràcia and Diagonal) and Merlin is a prominent owner on the periphery.
The Catalan capital, the firm points out, has more than 8 million square meters of offices and the 10 main owners of the city concentrate only 14% of the surface area (1.2 million m2) in 157 buildings. “Barcelona is a less institutionalized market than other European capitals, and also than Madrid” acknowledges Xavier Cotet, capital market director of the consultancy in Barcelona.
JLL notes that the ten largest landlords in the city are Colonial, Merlin, Núñez i Navarro, Catalana Occident, Zurich, Mapfre, Allianz, Blackstone, Rentamar and Kanam Grund. “78% of office owners have a single building”, notes Cotet. These owners, generally small wealth management offices, have little financial capacity “which currently prevents them from investing in the modernization that the offices need to be competitive”.
Cotet recalled that after the pandemic the market has been segmented. “Tenants need well-located and quality offices to attract workers and increase attendance rates. The office has an impact on your business”.
Properties that do not have these conditions must lower rents, and still have high unemployment rates. Many office buildings, especially in the Eixample, are small and with narrow floors “that no longer fit the demand of tenants, who are looking for spacious floors”, so in his opinion, they should be able to be transformed into homes . “The obligation imposed by the City Council to allocate 30% to social housing in these cases means that they are updated as office buildings, despite the fact that they do not make sense”, he lamented.
By geographic area, the largest landlord in the city center is Núñez y Navarro, with buildings such as the Núñez tower on Carrer Tarragona and the Rotonda, home to the headquarters of Nike and Accenture. On the Diagonal-passeig de Gràcia axis, the most important owner is Colonial, with emblematic buildings such as the Dau, where the Pedralbes Center is located, after which the Deka fund, owner of Alta Diagonal (the former headquarters of Caja Madrid) and El Triangle in Plaça Catalunya.
At 22@ the main owner is also Colonial, with the Mare Nostrum tower (the former headquarters of Naturgy) and the Wittywood building, the first built in wood in the city. After this society, Merlin stands out, which has among its buildings the Glòries tower, the former seat of Agbar.
Merlin and Colonial are also two of the largest office owners on the outskirts of Barcelona, ??an area in which Sant Cugat is particularly important, where the most important owner is the insurance company Catalana Occident. Merlin also owns the WTC Albereda Park, in Cornellà.
In the Fira-Plaza Europa area, the largest owner is Iberdrola Inmobiliaria: the firm was the promoter of the BCN Fira District and maintains ownership of two of the buildings: the East and West towers. Next to him stands out Axa, owner of the Administrative District of the Generalitat.
Until 2026, the office park in Barcelona will increase by 475,000 m2, with new works and renovations. The most active developers are now Freo, which is rehabilitating the Estel building (the former Telefónica headquarters on Avinguda de Roma, with 50,000 m2) and Conren Tramway, which has four projects underway, of 50,000 m2, among the which highlights the Tres Xemeneies building, in Paral·lel.
“A large departure from buildings coincides with a moment of market weakness”, acknowledges Cotet, who remembers, however, that the same thing happened when Diagonal Mar was built. “There will be an increase in the availability rate, certainly, but it will be momentary” he anticipates.