The French leader for business real estate takes over the center in Nice (100.000 m2) from a Dutch pension fund. A transaction which would cost less than one billion francs.
The Nice-Etoile shopping center gets in the hand of the French group Unibail. A memorandum of agreement has been signed with the owner, the Dutch pension fund PGGM Pensionendfonds. They managed more than 80% of the building because 19.6% of it belong to the British group C&A (4.300 m2).
A turnover of almost one billion francs
Unibail, which should take up the shopping center from September 30th 2000, has been chosen among four candidates selected last July. Two of them were foreign groups. The total amount of the transaction has not been revealed. We just know that it would be under one billion francs.
Nice-Etoile, which is right in the heart of Nice, on the Jean Médecin avenue, has been inaugurated in April 1982. The whole building is composed of 100.000 m2 of shopping areas (about one hundred shops), of offices and accommodations (146 apartments) and 54.000 m2 of underground parking lots (2200 parking spaces among which 400 private ones).
The transaction does neither concern apartments, nor private spaces, nor the shopping area which belong to C&A. In 1999, the shopping center has generated a 945 million francs turnover, increasing by more than 10% compared with last year.
A redistribution of some spaces is envisaged
Obviously the business property is not hit by the sale. Just simple changes could occur in the management. Nice-Etoile is for the moment managed by the Société des Centres Commerciaux in Paris (Society for shopping centers) while Espace Expansion, the branch of Unibail has got his own integrated management structure (eighteen shopping centers managed)
On the other hand, the redistribution of some shopping spaces has been envisaged already before the sale. The FNAC in particular, wished to be able to widen. So, the new owner could start the operation before the end of the year and could alter a shopping center which will be soon twenty years old…