A State-owned company behind Puerto Madero

It is not only the newest neighborhood, and one of the most expensive. Puerto Madero has another peculiarity: is the only island in the city which has a projected urban plan 23 years ago and is compliant with a Scandinavian thoroughness in the midst of a country in which improvisation is gaining ground.

What's behind the 170 hectares that make up the urban complex? A corporation whose shares are divided equally between Buenos Aires and national Governments. The Corporación old Puerto Madero (Capsa), the doer of the plan, is a company with public capital, but closer to a private company management.

It all started in 1989 when the national Government gave to the newly created Capsa the hectares which were then separated from the city by an iron grating. In 1990, there was a contest of architects. Four projects were selected and the master plan which marked him the objectives the Corporation emerged from them. With the Earth and the urban plan, it was launched the most ambitious decades real estate venture.

Today everything is practically finished. According to sources close to the company, the master plan it is accomplished by 85% and is a single field which is in the hands of the Corporation. It's a part of sports field that uses the Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires, an area that for years is in continuous negotiation. What more needs to be done? Parquizar two squares that are in the plan and not much more.

What living the company? With all the land sold, the Capsa is financed with the income of the concessions of the beaches of parking that is located in between the limits of the avenues Córdoba and Brazil - today Cecilia Grierson and Elvira Rawson of Dellepianne - and the river and the avenida Madero-Huergo. The beaches of parking, which charge fees that are among the highest in the city, are precarious concessions. I.e. as delayed work of the Riverside Highway, a route of transit that would unite the North with the South of the greater Buenos Aires without entering the city centre, is projected by that area dealers could be evicted only with the decision of the national Government to move forward with the highway. Other income come through the canyons of rentals of infrastructure (for example, four mirrors of water included in the docks) and the sale of advertising.

According to the last balance sheet (corresponds to 2011, as of 2012, will be known in June), the company was dedicated in recent times to exit the operating deficit. "Since 2009 began a process of enhancement of the cannons. Capsa revenues grew 73 percent in 2010 and 28% in 2011 ", the report says. Half of operating costs are for the contract with maintenance and services/Omaluxe (UTE), the firm which carried out the maintenance of public spaces. Unlike all the other neighborhoods in Buenos Aires, la Capsa was responsible for urbanization, fragmentation, and tenders of all works of Puerto Madero. From asphalt, sidewalks, signage, installation of traffic lights and up to the laying of fiber-optic were projects tendered by the Corporation. The great goal raised the signature for 2012 was just reverse the operating deficit in 2011.

If it is subtracted the sale of land, which raised $83.3 million, rents meant you to the Capsa $12.2 million in 2011, while granted leases revenues were $1.8 million. Another of the areas in which the Capsa is required is to advise Governments and municipalities in the creation of similar developments. By this category during 2011 entered box 351.000 pesos.

EXCEPT of the fight between nation and city La Capsa is a haven from the frequent quarrels between the Casa Rosada and the head of Government of Buenos Aires. Plan works remained, and the ups and downs of politics not halted its actions. There are six directors, three by each shareholder, with a Presidency that rotates every two years between representatives of one and another side. The President is Eugenio Breard (representative of the city), who succeeded Iván Heim, the Economist close to La Campora, who died in a hotel in the middle of a presidential visit to Uruguay Montevideo.