Colonial, Merlin and Núñez y Navarro are the three largest office owners in Barcelona, according to a study carried out by the consulting firm JLL, which highlights that they are also the only ones that have more than 20 buildings each. Its presence, furthermore, is especially strong in specific areas of the city: Núñez is the largest owner in the center of Barcelona, while Colonial is in the Business Center or CBD (the area of promenade 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 (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 markets director of the consulting firm in Barcelona.
JLL points out that the ten largest property owners in the city are Colonial, Merlin, Núñez y Navarro, Catalana Occidente, Zurich, Mapfre, Allianz, Blackstone, Rentamar and Kanam Grund. “78% of office owners have a single building,” says Cotet. These owners, generally small family offices, have little financial capacity “which right now 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, quality offices to attract workers and increase the presence rate. “Your office impacts your business.”
Properties that do not have these conditions have to lower their rents, and even so they have high vacancy 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 large floors", so in his opinion they should be able to be transformed into homes. “The obligation that the City Council has imposed to allocate 30% to social housing in these cases means that they are updated as office buildings, even though they do not make sense,” he lamented.
By geographical areas, the largest owner in the city center is Núñez y Navarro, with buildings such as the Torre Núñez on Tarragona Street and La Rotonda, where the headquarters of Nike and Accenture are located. On the Diagonal-Paseo de Gràcia axis the largest owner is Colonial, with emblematic buildings such as the Dau, where the Pedralbes Center is located, behind which stands out the Deka fund, owner of Alta Diagonal (the former headquarters of Caja Madrid) and The Triangle of Plaza Catalunya.
In 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. Behind this Socimi, Merlin stands out, which has among its buildings the Torre Glòries, the former headquarters of Agbar.
Merlin and Colonial are also two of the largest owners of offices on the outskirts of Barcelona, an area in which Sant Cugat has special weight, where the largest owner is the insurance company Catalana Occidente. Merlin also owns the WTC Alameda Park, in Cornellà.
In the Fira-plaza Europa Zone, the largest owner is Iberdrola Inmobiliaria: the firm was the promoter of the BCN Fira District and maintains the property of two of the buildings: the Llevant tower and the Ponent tower. Next to him stands out Axa, owner of the Administrative District of the Generalitat.
Until 2026, Barcelona's office park will increase by 475,000 m², with new works and renovations. The most active promoters are now Freo, which is rehabilitating the Estel building (the former Telefónica headquarters on Avenida de Roma, with 50,000 m²) and Conren Tramway, which has four projects underway, of 50,000 m², among which the Tres Xemeneies building, in Paral·lel.
“A large outflow of buildings coincides with a moment of weakness in the market,” acknowledges Cotet, who recalls, 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,” anticipates.
