Barueri hosts Business City
Valor Econômico
With a folder full of documents, plans, approvals and permits, and a friendlier presentation of a project of 250 thousand square meters four kilometers from Alphaville, Manfredo Costa Neto, Officer of the consulting firm Cushman & Wakefield, is knocking at the doors of the big corporations. He made a detailed survey and found out that 80 companies based in Brazil - of the many different sectors - occupy more than 10 thousand square meters with their administrative teams. Those companies are divided into 361 different physical spaces. "Of the group, 60% are in inefficient spaces, divided into several locations, in old buildings, with expensive lease agreements".
His role is to convince any part of such group to move into a single and, until recently, unusual address - 30 km from downtown São Paulo. Cushman was hired by Servape, a family company operating in the region for more than 30 years, to find large occupants for what he called "Business City of São Paulo". With a total investment estimated at R$ 1.6 billion (US$ 1 billion), including resources from third-parties, nine commercial towers, a hotel, a Convention Center and a shopping mall will be erected to host the employees, in an area of 250 thousand square meters located in the 30th km of the Castello Branco road, four kilometers from Alphaville.
The Servape group is a company founded in 1975 by the family of Rubens Garcia Nunes. At 87, Nunes is in the business, headed by his son Milton Nunes, more as an investor than as an actual manager. According to Leonardo Nunes, grandson of Rubens, there is a group of closed investors to invest the R$ 250 million (US$ 156.3 million) with the company required for the first phase, which will have a hotel and Convention Center. The second phase, planned for this year, includes the construction of two commercial towers. Like his grandfather, Nunes based his entire career in the financial market - part in the Citibank - and entered the business recently to raise funds for Altta, the subsidiary created to develop main project of Servape. The hotel will be ready first to attract the businesses. Servape is in the process of signature of a contract with a brand of international hotels, which will inject cash in the works, and the Convention Center will be managed by Transamérica Eventos. Since it is near the Barueri Arena, which will be used in the training of the games of the FIFA Cup, the hotel may use a special credit line of the BNDES (National Development Bank), which finances up to 80% of the works.
The group is willing to convince potential occupants with a competitive price. They intend to charge nearly R$ 45 (US$ 28) of rent per square meter, compared to an average of R$ 100 (US$ 62.50) in SP and R$ 65 (US$ 40.63) in the new buildings in Alphaville. Competition is high. The region of Alphaville and Tamboré will have more than 700 thousand square meters of high standard commercial buildings until 2014. On his visits, the Officer of Cushman shows the savings a large organization may have settling at a single space, with a rental at such price range. So far, Amil, Philips and Redecard have already moved there and other companies assess following the same route. Notwithstanding the employees not always approve the change. Being outside Alphaville is becoming na advantage. "It will not be required to face the local traffic or the marginal turnpike" says Victor Athié Simão, Director of Altta.