The State finds no buyer for the abandoned shopping center in the Olympic Village

BarcelonaThe future of El Centre de la Vila remains uncertain. The auction of the shopping center in the Vila Olímpica neighborhood, held this Wednesday in Madrid, ended without a bid. As ARA has learned, the State has not found any buyer interested in an asset it has left abandoned for years. A new scenario now opens up in which it remains to be seen whether Barcelona City Council will reopen negotiations with Mercasa – the public company that manages the center – to try to acquire the space for a more economical price.

As ARA reported, after years of disinvesting and accumulating complaints from residents due to the abandonment of El Centre de la Vila, the State had decided to get rid of the problem by auctioning the shopping center. The company was asking for 25.7 million euros for the entire complex, although it had already opened the door to selling it for a value close to 18.5 million if it did not find a buyer for a higher price. Finally, therefore, there was no one interested even at this last figure.

It remains to be seen from now on what Barcelona City Council's position will be. Until now, sources from the council were limited to saying that they were following the process "closely" to see "how the operation evolves and what projects are planned." The lack of buyers, however, could open a new window of opportunity for the City Council to negotiate the purchase for a price lower than the 18 million euros that the company is currently requesting, at a minimum, for El Centre de la Vila. Nevertheless, municipal sources had emphasized in the past that beyond the purchase cost, the center also requires a significant investment to bring it up to date.

In 2021, the then mayor, Ada Colau, had already committed to negotiating the transfer of El Centre de la Vila with the State, but Mercasa has always preferred the sale of an asset that it initially valued at 50 million euros. A price that has been found to be exorbitant this Wednesday. Residents have been demanding for a long time that the City Council take charge of a center that, despite its abandonment, is currently one of the few commercial hubs in the neighborhood.

A lawsuit in court

Meanwhile, however, the shopping center continues to deteriorate. Today, only about thirty of the more than eighty commercial premises in the complex remain open. Furthermore, as Mercasa itself acknowledged in the report with which it announced the auction, the situation of "special deterioration in some of the properties" must be taken into account. The annex on the charges accompanying the lot listed, among others, groundwater leaks at various points in the building that have damaged installations and elements of the structural system; cracks and fissures due to "lack of adequate maintenance"; decomposition of concrete in some elements of the structural system, and technical and safety deficiencies in the high-voltage installation.

All of this, combined with the litigation that the center has been dragging on for some time regarding the management of the car park. In recent days, the situation of the shopping center has become even more complicated. All the neighborhood communities on the block affected by the water leaks from the Mercasa-owned car park have filed a lawsuit demanding three million euros from the public company. The cost, they claim, would be to carry out the repairs they have long requested to prevent water from entering the car park. In addition, they have also asked the City Council to carry out an inspection of the -3 floor of the car park so that it can open a file against Mercasa for the neglect of the space, with an accumulation of waste, dirt, abandoned vehicles, and bad smells that could be a breeding ground for pests.