Mainside buys Desterro for €10.5M

Lisbon’s former hospital of Desterro has been sold to developers Mainside group for €10.5 million.

According to Iberian Property, the State sold the ensemble of 18th century buildings which used to be a convent, through Estamo which is a public-owned property agency and developer under the Portuguese umbrella public company responsible for managing State companies, Parpública.
The group had occupied the buildings as a tenant since 2013, and has now acquired the property, where it intends to follow an initial plan to transform the former hospital into a mixed project (including residential property) with two Zero Hotels (Mainside brand), catering/hospitality facilities, and other uses, confirmed a source from Mainside to Eco Online news.
It was in 2013 when Mainside signed a protocol with the Lisbon City Council and Estamo for the rehabilitation of the old hospital, which operated as a convent until 1834, but the project, which should have started immediately, suffered successive delays and reformulations.
In 2018, Iberia Property recalls that Mainside had mooted the completion of part of the project in the third quarter of 2019. Later, in June 2020, it even considered abandoning the project, after Estamo had refused a request for the temporary suspension of rents set at €25,000 per month, due to the effects of the pandemic.
Susana Pais, coordinator of the Mainside project, noted “time dragged on without the project coming to fruition. There was a pandemic in between, which made matters worse, and it got to a point where we put the [purchase] option on the table because it would simply be easier. Now we’ve been able to successfully conclude the sale”.