The company One Outlet SA on Tuesday was declared the preferred investor in a tender to exploit the Modiano market (arcade) property in central Thessaloniki.
The tender was called by the Greek privatization fund (TAIPED), which owns a controlling stake (43.64 percent) in the property.
The binding offer was for 1.9 million euros, slightly higher than the 1.75 million valuation cited by the fund.
The 2,510-square-meter retail space was the center-piece of a relevant tender for the property by TAIPED (the Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund), and came in the face of a complex ownership scheme for the site.
The rest of the property, 56.37 percent, belongs to 61 individuals, of varying shares, the result of Greece’s outdated ab indiviso legal framework for property inheritance, whereby initial inheritors and their inheritors become co-owners over several generations.
Often times this type of ownership arrangement leads to a property’s abandonment and depreciation, as co-owners struggle to agree on a common course for exploitation, sale to a third party or even a buyout amongst themselves.
Construction of the closed market was begun in 1922 and finished in 1930, under the supervision of architect Eli Modiano. It was based on the Parisian style of closed markets during that era.
The Modiano market is closely linked with the northern Greek metropolis’ centuries-old Sephardic Jewish presence.
