El Corte Inglés Méndez Álvaro faces demolition over excess floor area

El Corte Inglés Méndez Álvaro closes with 25,300 m² of excess

El Corte Inglés in Méndez Álvaro faces demolition, and the figure explaining it has nothing to do with e-commerce: 25,300 square meters of profitable commercial floor area built above the permitted limit, according to cited reports. The second figure is less technical but far more uncomfortable: twenty years standing on a building that, if the complaint was correct, should never have been constructed this way.

The images accompanying the closure — empty corridors, parking lots with four cars, employees working their shifts with eyes on the exit — have been read as a portrait of an era fading away. Beneath the nostalgic aroma lies an urban planning file, a lawsuit lasting more than a decade, and a real estate operation no one has announced publicly.

What peine with the Méndez Álvaro center's license?

In 2012, a legal battle began over alleged irregularities in the construction of three centers: Serrano 47, Campo de las Naciones, and Méndez Álvaro. The defect consisted specifically of adding profitable commercial surface area beyond what was authorized. All this occurred in a property that operated for two decades without anyone challenging it.

The case reached the Supreme Court driven by a private individual who spent significant resources along the way, according to circulating accounts. A citizen with funds and stubbornness to litigate against one of the country's largest companies. That a single plaintiff could trigger the end of a shopping center says little about the system and much about administrative paralysis.

There is no consensus. Some argue the building is "100% legal" and that the irregularity involved expansions on the top two floors, made at the expense of reducing parking space. The legal distance between an entirely illegal building and poorly finished upper floors is enormous, and who gets portrayed depends on which interpretation holds.

Why does Méndez Álvaro fall while Serrano or Campo de las Naciones remain?

The file affected three locations. Only one is being demolished. The most repeated explanation is not urban planning, but arithmetic: the other two sites would not offer a comparable opportunity to that provided by a cleared plot in southern Madrid.

The word repeated is windfall. According to this reading, here a store is not closing; a sale is closing: the land, rezoned, would be worth more than decades of selling sheets and tablecloths. It is pointed out that the planned scheme includes an office tower, green areas, and public facilities, although that is what appears on paper, not what is signed.

The opposing thesis is more prosaic: the center had not been profitable for years, and the lawsuit only accelerated an outcome already written in the income statement. Demolition by court order and demolition by balance sheet both end up in the same pile of rubble.

The double standard of urban planning versus individuals

This is where the conversation truly heats up. Those wanting to open a terrace in Madrid fight centimeter by centimeter against regulations, facing inspections and fines if they exceed limits. Those who build excessively next door receive city council representatives appearing in court defending licenses that did not comply with norms. The cited example is specific: the Madrid City Council fined 65 bar terraces in Chamberí for abusa the new ordinance.

The argument "we create jobs" works as a shield when convenient and vanishes when business changes direction. It is the same logic that makes large operators exceptions and small ones suspects. It also explains why anger points less at a company than at the rule applied depending on the size of the abusa.

Amazon, Mercadona, and the shift in consumption

There is a second burial overlapping the urban one: that of the retail model. The department store competed on price with food chains and on logistics with digital platforms, losing on both fronts. One user claims its own supermarkets were twice as expensive as Mercadona with identical quality, in their opinion.

Its defenders do not appeal to price, but to patriotism: that the company is, at least, local. The money still ends up going to foreign digital platforms, but the sentimental component holds. It is an emotional defense and, precisely because of that, it does not help balance books.

What fades with the sales

Below the analysis remains a layer not measured in square meters. Closing Méndez Álvaro means closing the place where a generation bought school uniforms, tried their first console, or accompanied a grandmother for a stroll to the window display. Some describe this closure as a rehearsal for another: the day that same generation discovers how their pension looks after so many years of contributions.

Serrano and Campo de las Naciones remain open. Hipercor is gone. And the southern plot awaits its next life with the shutter down.

If the land ends up rezoned and sold, the closure will have been a real estate operation disguised as commercial defeat. If it is not sold, we will have demolished a shopping center to leave a vacant lot. In both scenarios, the same person loses: the one who shopped there every Friday. Which scenario materializes depends on a document that has not yet been made public.