BUSINESS CENTER OF SANTA MARIA DA FEIRA WANTS TO INCREASE FACILITIES AND REPLICATE BUSINESS MODEL

"When a multinational looks at Santa Maria da Feira, it looks at the city encompassed in the great Porto, and not as a territory per se"

The Business Center of Santa Maria da feira (CEF) is "equating” the expansion, and by the end of 2019 it predicts to "double" the number of jobs in the area, and to house about 240 employees. The CEF, created about 18 months ago, from the use of facilities and space left by the old factory Rhode and occupying an area of 51,500 m2, has an occupancy rate of about 55%.

The CEF represents today for the economic development of Santa Maria da Feira the capture of more than 45 companies, which have already created more than 120 jobs. When compared with the other industrial zones in the municipality of Santa Maria da Feira, Hugo Pinto pointed out that CEF has "a differentiated service in terms of "fit out" and support services, in terms of functionality of the facilities themselves. Hugo Pinto, director general of the CEF, in an interview, reveals that, given the success achieved so far, they are "considering the increase in the built area of CEF and, eventually, the replication of this business model to other areas of Santa Maria da Feira or in any part of the national territory”. According to the responsible, CEF's "core business" is focused on attracting technology companies and services to occupy offices spaces and value-added service companies for the warehouses.

This business comes up, from the shareholders, from the banking crisis. What it was done at the time was trying to arrange alternative investments, other than term deposits or having money in the bank. Based on this, they have been looking for assets. This was the largest national footwear factory, the old Rohde, which had already gone bankrupt 12 years before the purchase. When we bought this land, it was completely destroyed: there were every kind of robberies, there were huge whistles everywhere and the space was very destroyed. We had to get here and immediately proceed to clean the whole space and the perimeter, and from there we began to outline the strategy that would fit best in what we intended to do with this property. We did a first drawing, and then we started to plan and execute the various planning stages.

At the moment we have an occupation rate of around 50%, and with Faurecia's expansion contract, which we must close in the next few days, we will have about 60%. In terms of companies, we have around 45 companies represented, and the overall investment either ours or of the companies that are here) is around nine million euros. Although, in my opinion, I think we will spend even more 2 or 3 million until we fully complete the project.