LUCCA. First it goes to auction, then it’s withdrawn at the last minute and now it’s up for sale again. It is a curious fate that has befallen the Loggia dei Mercanti, the palace with Renaissance mullioned windows which stands next to the “Pult” and overlooks the small square of the same name at the crossroads between via Sant’Andrea and Fillungo, once the seat of trade for where Lucca was famous throughout the world and subsequently home to the Magistrates’ Court. The building has been empty for some time, precisely since Massimo Rebecchi’s “Vela” clothing store decided to move on. It was 2019 and the property was part of the portfolio of assets owned by Pioneer Re Star, a closed-end real estate investment fund reserved for qualified members, created in 2007 with an expected duration of 30 years and a subscribed capital of 40 million of Euro. There were also people from Lucca who held shares in the fund, owners of properties inside and outside the Walls.
The management of the fund was entrusted to the Torre Sgr company, a Roman company specialized in the management and distribution of real estate financial products in Italy. To finance its activities in 2013, the fund took out a four million euro loan with the Banca di Pisa and Fornacette Credito Cooperativo, securing the loan with a mortgage on its assets worth eight million euros.
To make a long story short, the real estate market plummets following the crisis triggered by subprime mortgages and the fund’s assets all end up at auction. In addition to the Loggia dei Mercanti there are also the former Cartiera Pasquini and Palazzo Sardi. The sale of the Loggia dei Mercanti, divided into six lots including the commercial property, an apartment and the two floors of the building overlooking Via Sant’Andrea – is set for 23 June 2023 but a few days before that date the scenario changes. A company from Milan, Maverick spv, offers to buy the credit and the auction is cancelled.
Now that same company puts the good back on the market. It can be found among the real estate ads on the various dedicated platforms: the intermediary is IntermediaRe srl, another Milan company that operates in the sector. The property is sold en bloc and offered at a price of 4.7 million euros. Not a small thing for the 1,764 square meters that characterize it. A figure that some operators in the sector consider too high, considering that that same property had been offered for sale for 3.5 million before ending up at auction but had found no buyers. Someone, to be honest, had given it more than a little thought but at lower prices. We’ll see what happens. It would probably be easier to sell the property in separate lots, as the court intended to do in June 2023, but as mentioned, the scenario changed at the last moment. The same fate befell both the Pasquini paper mill and more recently Palazzo Sardi. The sale of the six apartments was scheduled for May 10th but the auction was suspended at the last minute.
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