The State Attorney's Office torpedoes the competition for the Valencia Docks by restricting uses

The State Attorney's Office in Valencia has put shackles on the city council when it comes to seeking solutions to the Docks building, an emblematic building located in the area of the Royal Marina of Valencia, with a protected façade and that has been closed and unused for years. use due to the impossibility of fitting projects. The new municipal government, led by the popular María José Catalá, has just stopped the competition for the transfer and construction in this space (in which urban planning allows raising two more heights above it) of a data processing center with mixed uses which was initiated by the previous local executive, led by Joan Ribó (Compromís) in coalition with the PSPV-PSOE.

A report dated April 13 by the lawyer Carmen de Puig de Olano, who was linked to the Port of Valencia as advisor to its subsidiary Valencia Plataforma Intermodal, maintains that any activity that involves economic exploitation, the collection of a fee by of the town hall and the restriction of open access to the public would be contrary to the legislation and would entail the return to the autonomous entity of the State of the property that was transferred to the local Administration in 2013.

The report, to which El Confidencial had access, refers specifically to the data center project, which indicates that it does not meet the criteria of “public utility” and “social interest” established by the Ports Law for unaffected properties or land. of port activity that have been transferred. According to him, the fact that the building is going to have private use generates economic returns for the concessionaire of the surface right and also for the City Council itself, invalidating the conditions of the transfer..

The lawyer's argument restricts the options for providing content to the Docks building and opens up a whole scenario of legal uncertainty regarding the management model of the Valencia Marina if it is extended to elements already in place.. In the background, there is the conflict that remains unresolved over the transfer of spaces no longer related to port activity and their integration into the city's maritime façade..

The paradox of the report is that the Docks would not have been the only property located in the sector of the old inner dock of the Port of Valencia that houses economic activity and whose access to the public is restricted by its concessionaires.. The most emblematic of these elements is the complex of two buildings that makes up the Business Marina that was promoted by the owner of Mercadona Juan Roig and has been operating for years.. The private business school Edem and Lanzadera, the start-up accelerator that finances the distribution businessman, are located here.. In a public tender called by the Valencia 2007 Consortium, Marina de Empresas obtained the surface right for part of the land, with the commitment to construct the buildings, in exchange for an annual fee of just over 300,000 euros, in a process very similar to the of the docks.

It is not the only case. Several bases of the former teams participating in the America's Cup are transferred under a concession regime to third parties that carry out economic activities and even sublet spaces as another part of their operating model.. This is the case of the consulting firm Innsomnia, the BioHub center or Angels Capital, the investment arm of Juan Roig, complementary to Lanzadera.

The Lawyer's thesis is that once the ICO credits that were used to finance the America's Cup had been liquidated, the tripartite Consortium that managed the spaces since they were enabled for the regatta starting in 2006 should be dissolved, and all the elements that had any component of economic exploitation to return to the Port, understanding that they do not fulfill the social utility for which they were transferred, as stated by the State Attorney's Office in Valencia in another report from 2022, in response to consultations from the Port Authority. For now, there has been no agreement between administrations to resolve this legal-administrative mess..

The argument also extends to sectors of the maritime façade that were transferred to the Valencia City Council itself, as is the case of the Docks building, a building that for years housed a nightclub, another paradox.. The previous local administration alleged that the municipal reports did admit the public interest in the data center project due to its volume of investment or job creation and decided to continue with the administrative procedure, ignoring the warnings from the State Attorney's Office.. The contracting table even made an award proposal in favor of the company Sineasen (Datium), but now the new government team of the popular María José Catalá has stopped the contest and has chosen to deactivate it. The virtual successful bidder offered the disbursement of a fee of more than one million euros, an investment of 43 million euros and the creation of 590 jobs..

Among the reasons given for overturning the procedure, according to the withdrawal document to which El Confidencial has had access, the specific Lawyer's report on the Docks prepared by De Puig de Olano is cited, but an opinion contrary to the project is also expressed.. “The current government team does not agree that the purpose of installing an Electronic Data Processing Center deserves to be declared of public utility or social interest for the purposes of granting and constituting a real right of surface in this building and this based on the consideration that an infrastructure of such a nature can be established in any other location of less strategic importance for the city than a singular, emblematic building endowed with heritage protection by current planning,” they point out..

“The destination to be given to the aforementioned property by the City Council (constituting a surface right over it for its exploitation by a third party, in exchange for an annual fee) is contrary to the purpose of public utility or social interest for which the cited well was transferred, referring us again to the arguments contained in the report of October 19, 2022”, states the lawyer from the State Attorney's Office in her report.

The promoters of the initiative, who have appealed through administrative channels and are preparing a lawsuit against the municipal decision, handle consulting reports with examples of mixed-use data centers integrated into emblematic buildings such as the headquarters of the National Supercomputing Center in the Tower Girona in Barcelona, a neoclassical building from the 19th century; the Bahnhof Data Center, in an old nuclear shelter under Stockholm's Vita Berg park; or the Salem Chapel in Leeds (United Kingdom), a former chapel from 1791 that houses a mixed-use space with the headquarters of the telecommunications company Aql, with a data center, auditorium and restaurant offering.