Rolling in green
Madrileño city district of Villaverde becoming a last-mile hub.
A rapid transformation is taking place 11 km south of the Spanish capital’s city centre, where industry used to predominate. A logistics hub for the last mile is now coming up there. Several real estate developers are in on the act for the last remaining plots.
Villaverde, a southern district of the city of Madrid, has developed into one of the conurbation’s most sought-after and thus expensive logistics locations. The 3.3 million inhabitants of the Spanish capital can be reached in 20 minutes from Villaverde. Close connections to the A-42, M-40 and M-45 motorways and to the Avenida de Andalucía easily link Villaverde to the rest of the country. Barajas airport, Europe’s No. 12 airfreight location (see page 6 of ITJ 9-10 / 2022), can be reached in just 25 minutes, opening a gateway to the world.
José Antonio Ruiz-Berdejo y Sigurtà, the executive vice-president of development in Spain for Engel & Völkers, recently pointed out that “warehousing space and logistics properties in this country are also benefiting from the growth of online retail activities and becoming ever more important. Compared to the rest of Europe, e-commerce in Spain still accounts for a small share of the market. It thus offers players very promising growth potential.”
From near and far
The German real-estate company is involved in developing 85,000 m2 of land in the area, which covers approximately 600,000 m2.
The largest property developer on site is Pavasal. The Valencia-based company has added another compound measuring approximately 150,000 m2 to its existing 50,000 m2 zone, next to the Peugeot and Citroën factories that date from 1952.
Word of the promising opportunities in Madrid has also spread further afield in recent months, resulting in the US corporation Colliers planning to make a facility covering around 14,600 m2 available to suppliers operating on the last mile in the fourth quarter of this year.