Cyclone Manfredi Catella on Milan after Covid?
All the latest real estate moves in Milan by Manfredi Catella di Coima sgr
Milan starts again. Or at least he tries. And it does so by replicating one of its most modern and acclaimed symbols all over the world: Stefano Boeri's Vertical Forest. The archistar, in collaboration with Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Stefano Boeri Architetti, also designed the botanical tower. It is a project that involves the renovation of two buildings and the creation of a new skyscraper. All this in the Pirellino in Milan, the complex of buildings in via Pirelli purchased in 2019 by Coima for around 200 million euros. In short, there is once again Manfredi Catella (very Renzian of the first hour. To Corriere , in November 14, he declared: "They introduced him to me a couple of years ago in a meeting at the Metropolitan foundation. There were Francesco Micheli and Davide Serra. With Renzi there is human harmony even before politics. He immediately seemed to me one who believes in it, one who works. I like the approach, insisting on the theme of cultural discontinuity. He understood that this country must be changed by fondamenta ») behind the transformation of the Lombard capital and yet another tower that will revolutionize its skyline.
THE LAST SHOT OF MANFREDI CATELLA
The Pirellino is a building from the 1960s, which remained without buyers for a long time, which belonged to the Municipality of Milan. Fortune, for Palazzo Marino, was being able to get rid of it before the pandemic exploded. In fact, the sale took place at the beginning of 2019, when the city seemed to have no development limits yet. Suffice it to say that the starting price was 87 million euros, a figure that practically doubled during a battle at the last relaunch in which Coima, which collects Italian and foreign funds, won. Even giants of the caliber of the Americans of Blackstone and the Chinese of China Investment have been beaten. In short, to paraphrase the saying, no brick is moving in Milan that Manfredi Catella does not want …
THE KING OF BRICK
Did she not go beyond Coima? Manfredi Catella assured Corriere della Sera that the game was worth the candle: «Milan is expressing great innovation and has now entered the radar of international investors who are growing in size by diversifying their investments internationally by choosing cities with the greatest growth prospects. In Milan we decided to focus on the places that we believe have the greatest prospect of development, in particular in Porta Nuova, in the railway stations and in the adjacent districts, necessarily having to give up other development areas, such as the former Falck area in Sesto San Giovanni or Santa Giulia, in Rogoredo. It is a choice that with the recent acquisitions of the former INPS headquarters, the former Telecom building, in the Melchiorre Gioia areas, the "Pirellino" completes the circle by doubling the development of Porta Nuova which has regenerated the former airport. railway of Garibaldi ".
WHAT IS THE BOTANICAL TOWER
Manfredi Catella's project is now starting to take shape, at least in the renderings presented to the press. Torre botanica will be the last skyscraper to appear in the Milan skyline (however, the opening date of the construction site is not known) with 1,700 square meters of vegetation spread over several floors, in layers like grandmothers' cakes. According to the designers it will be a green lung capable of producing 9 tons of oxygen per year and absorbing 14 tons of carbon dioxide. With 2,770 square meters of photovoltaic panels, the botanical tower will be able to produce 65% of its energy needs. The complex, which will require an investment of about 1 billion euros (but will create no less than 5 thousand jobs), will have three buildings: the transformed Pirellino, the new botanical tower and the bridge spanning via Melchiorre Gioia which will become a greenhouse, but also an indoor exhibition space.
THE OLD INCHIESTA DE L'ESPRESSO
A bit like an umarell, if a construction site opens in Milan, you can be sure that nearby is Coima di Manfredi Catella , the manager who managed Hines at the time of the Porta Nuova project. A small parenthesis on Hines: it ended up at the center of the Espresso investigation entitled "Here are the Italians with the tailor-made tax authorities", the result of the meticulous journalistic work done by sifting through the 28 thousand pages of Luxembourg tax documents uncovered by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. That old article read: “Some large investors have managed to minimize the taxes payable in Italy on important transactions. Billionaires' business taxed very little thanks to generous Luxembourg legislation. One name above all: the real estate giant Hines, which with the capital raised in Luxembourg has redesigned, among skyscrapers, gardens and new streets, an important slice of the center of Milan, between the Isola, Garibaldi, Porta Nuova and Varesine districts. Hines is led in Italy by Manfredi Catella , financed for a long time by Salvatore Ligresti , then left the scene due to instability ”.
MANFREDI CATELLA LIQUID LIGRESTI
In the same interview with Corsera in which Catella declared her sympathy for Renzi , she hastened to liquidate her relationship with Ligresti : «With Ligresti there was a limited and punctual relationship. He went into Porta Nuova because he was the owner of the areas but then he didn't even build a building. Our job has to do with public spaces, the care of the territory, the common good. Themes that should be dear to the left. In a certain moment we have instead become the "enemies" by definition. Now the mentality, even on this point, has changed ». A statement that did not go unnoticed by the journalist Vittorio Malagutti , who from his blog on Espresso reported another externalization by Manfredi Catella : "" After the death of my father, six years ago, I have three mentors left: my wife, Gerald Hines and Ligresti ». Word of Manfredi Catella . Four years ago".
THE ARRIVAL OF THE QATARIOTS IN MILAN
But let's go back to the Porta Nuova project which, as we know, when Milan was still a dynamic European square and in full transformation had been sold to the Qatari funds of the Qatar investment authority, which had long since settled in the city's parlor. In the city – it should be emphasized – pre Covid-19, the one that never stopped, never slept, built continuously and crushed tens of thousands of university students and workers too lazy to commute with increasingly expensive rents.
MILAN POST COVID: TOWARDS THE BUSINESS DISTRICT BUBBLE?
But now that smart working could redesign the way of understanding offices, one wonders if it will still make sense to continue building gigantic representative offices which, however fascinating and futuristic, run the risk of remaining empty. The fact is that wherever a brick moves in Milan, behind there are Manfredi Catella and Coima, already responsible for the first vertical forest, Porta Volta, for the Gioia 22 glass splinter in which Ubi Banca will set up its headquarters and for the Unicredit tower. in Piazza Gae Aulenti.
THE BET OF THE WINTER OLYMPICS (ADMITTED TO BE MADE)
Manfredi Catella and Covivio di Del Vecchio , in partnership with the Prada group, have won the Porta Romana airport for 180 million. They will have the opportunity to redevelop a mega area of 190 thousand square meters which according to the plans should above all host the Olympic village in view of the 2026 Winter Olympics (will they be done? God forbid we will still be struggling with Covid and its variants) and then yes will see, but the gain will be guaranteed, given the centrality of the new complex. Or rather, it should have been if Covid had not arrived, which will probably go away before the Olympics (we all hope so) but still risks, with its long queue, to revolutionize the concept of the city with the same enthusiasm with which Manfredi Catella's investments are redesigning the Milanese skyline.
MANFREDI CATELLA EXPOSES SECURITY
But Covid-19, which even in Lombardy was able to vent and demonstrate all its aggression and danger, damaging both the social and economic fabric, does not seem to scare Manfredi Catella at all, who indeed, on the occasion of the presentation of the botanical tower, he said: “Even in the light of the health emergency, I believe that the regeneration of the territory represents a strategic industrial key to relaunch the Italian territory, from a cultural, environmental, social and economic point of view. Our country is full of iconic buildings and extraordinary places which, as in the case presented today, need to be rewritten and rethought according to criteria of sustainability and innovation: a path and a mission that we have been sharing with our investors for a long time. and which can represent a decisive lever for our cities and for our country ".
REAL ESTATE INVESTMENTS AND SPECULATIONS IN PRE-COVID MILAN
In fact, Covid-19 risks evaporating the effervescent business on the Milanese brick. The Espresso had calculated some time ago that "in 2018 investments in commercial real estate, that is, excluding residential houses", only in Milan, where 60% of the investments in offices made in the country were concentrated, "reached the 3.2 billion. Within two years, therefore also considering 2017, the total sum rained on the city approaches 7 billion. Offices absorb the largest share of the market: 2.1 billion in 2018 ". And now? Will Milan recover or will the business district bubble burst (and maybe even that of coworking)? Manfredi Catella seems to still believe in it, but given his latest investments could he ever say the opposite?
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/ciclone-manfredi-catella-sulla-milano-post-covid/ on Fri, 29 Jan 2021 10:49:12 +0000.