february 2016 uli case studies · · 2017-08-05casestudies.uli.org porta nuova case study 1 porta...

casestudies.uli.org 1 Porta Nuova Case Study

Porta Nuova QUICK FACTSLocationMilan, Italy

Project typeMixed use—three or more uses

Site size29 hectares (72 ac)

Land usesOffice, retail, residential, civic and cultural, park, public space, parking

Keywords/special featuresSustainable development, LEED Gold certified, vertical forest, podium, green roof, regeneration, abandoned land, cycling paths, renewable energy, pedestrian-oriented development, transit-oriented development, high-rise buildings, geothermal energy

Websitewww.porta-nuova.com

Project addressPorta NuovaPiazza Gae Aulenti Milan, Italy

DeveloperHines Italia Srl Via della Moscova, 1820121 Milan, Italywww.hines.com/country/it/en/

Original owner Hines Italia SGR on behalf of Porta Nuova Garibaldi, Porta Nuova Varesine, Porta Nuova Isola funds

Current ownerQatar Investment Authority

Master plan architectsPelli Clarke Pelli ArchitectsNew Haven, Connecticut, United Stateswww.pcparch.com

Kohn Pedersen FoxNew York, New York, United Stateswww.kpf.co.uk/

Stefano Boeri ArchitettiMilan, Italywww.stefanoboeriarchitetti.net/en/

February 2016

ULI Case Studies

PRO JECT SUMMARY

Developed by Hines Italia, Porta Nuova is a mixed-use regeneration project near the centre of Milan on 290,000 square metres (72 ac) of land, of which 170,000 square metres (42 ac) is a public and pedestrian area, including a 90,000-square-metre (22 ac) public park. The development comprises 140,000 square metres (1.5 million sq ft) of office space, 403 residential units, 40,000 square metres (430,445 sq ft) of retail and cultural venues, and 3,000 parking spaces. Located to the north of the city centre in Italy’s most-connected transportation hub, Porta Nuova is one of the largest urban development projects in Europe, involving more than 20 architectural firms from eight countries. The 29-hectare (72 ac) project’s master plan is designed to revitalize an abandoned area while connecting the three adjacent neighbourhoods.

Porta Nuova is a large-scale regeneration project in the heart of Milan that includes three major districts. In the foreground is the famed Duomo, the Milan Cathedral.

In 1999, it was an initiative that seemed impos-sible to many in the city, observes Hines Italia SGR CEO Manfredi Catella about the idea to re-generate Milan’s Garibaldi-Repubblica area. In that year, Hines founder and chairman Gerald Hines

and Manfredi Catella’s late father, Riccardo Catella, founder of real estate management firm COIMA, decided to tackle the development of a large, com-plex site one kilometre (0.62 mi) southwest of the city’s Milano Centrale railway station.

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For decades, visionaries had tried and failed to find a purpose for the area. Its latest incarna-tion was as a railway station that was demol-ished in the 1960s. “Since then, the whole site became a mess and unused, despite being close to the centre,” recalls Manfredi Catella.

But Hines and Riccardo Catella were undeterred and boldly began negotiations in 2003 to assemble land from the ownership of some 20 local entrepreneurs. The duo’s aim was to develop what they saw as the best site—and best opportunity—in the city, so close to Milan’s centre.

It was a mission designed to reinstate Italy’s reputation for great city building as well. As Manfredi Catella notes: “We were fascinated by the idea of a project that had a cultural mission. Italy’s history shows it has a great talent for developing fantastic cites. But from the 1950s onwards, it has forgotten its capabilities in ur-banism, architecture, and development. We felt that if developed properly, Porta Nuova could restore that reputation.”

The early days were not easy. The devel-opers faced a deeply sceptical public that had seen many plans for the area come and go. They needed a convincing and compelling master plan. Given the sluggish pace of the negotia-tions over land assembly, however, the venture needed to create a vision for a site that did not yet have all the pieces in place.

“One of the biggest complexities was the fragmentation. We had a mosaic but not all of the pieces,” Catella recalls, adding: “The se-

quence of acquisition meant assets weren’t all secured at the same time. This was a complex-ity that needed to be worked around during that initial design phase.”

In the first year after opening, what has become known as the Porta Nuova project at-tracted 12 million visitors and quickly estab-lished itself as a vibrant mixed-use destination that is fully embraced by the Milanese, who use the area day and night. The redevelopment has succeeded in re-creating a new strategic centre for the city.

The area’s design is the result of the development of three master plans for three new districts—Porta Nuova Garibaldi, Porta Nuova Varesine, and Porta Nuova Isola—and the realization of these plans has been a significant achievement in stitching together the three well-established neighbourhoods/districts that circle the site. These three historic districts have been reconnected by the creation of a shared pedestrian zone of more than 170,000 square metres (42 ac), including a five-kilometre (3 mi) cycling path and the 90,000-square-metre (22 ac) public park called Biblioteca degli Alberi (tree library).

As ULI Italy executive committee member Jacopo della Fontana said: “This is a great ex-ample of how the public and private sectors can work efficiently and effectively together. This project has brought Milan a new contemporary example of very nice public realm space, which is what Italy has always been famous for, but lately had lost sight of.”

The Site and the Idea

The idea of redeveloping what is now known as the Porta Nuova site (after the name of the ancient city gate of Milan) has a long history. The first architectural tender took place about 100 years ago, with architectural competitions to find a new vision for the area occurring about once every de-cade between then and the late 1990s.

During the 19th century, railway lines criss-crossed the Porta Nuova area. When the Milano Centrale station was moved to a new location (one kilometre [0.62 mi] northeast of the area), the need for the Porta Nuova station was creat-ed. That station was then replaced in the 1960s by the Porta Garibaldi station (to the southwest of the site), leaving the Varesine area empty; it is this site that would become a crucial portion of the whole Porta Nuova area.

A master plan in 1953 envisioned the area as a new commercial hub because of its strate-gic location between the city centre and the train stations. But construction was halted at the end of the 1960s, leaving a large derelict area. An-other master plan from 1976 zoned the area for parks and public services, followed by a further plan in 1983 that ruled the land should be devel-oped as a business area.

“By the 1960s, the whole site had become abandoned, and despite being close to [the city] centre, was used for illegal activities. Fragment-ed ownership and the degradation and challenge of a piece of land of such size had historically made redevelopment fundamentally impos-sible,” says Manfredi Catella.

When Hines and Riccardo Catella entered the scene, the site was in the hands of some 20 dif-ferent owners, both private and public. By 2006 Hines had completed three years of negotiations to assemble the site, acquiring ownership of the private portions of land.

Crucially, the developers had also negoti-ated with the municipality to consolidate the public ownership that remained—in various strategic locations across the site—into the central part of the site, which hosted a road that took traffic east to west across the city. The publicly owned central site now serves as a 90,000-square-metre (22 ac) public park, managed by Hines.

The main challenge was to conceive a vi-sion that incorporated the pre-existing neigh-bourhoods of Brera (to the southwest), Isola (to the north), and Repubblica (to the east). The The Varesine district sits on a three-level podium and comprises offices and residential space around a central green.

The Varesine district’s 4,000-square-metre (43,000 sq ft) green roof is positioned at ground level, covering a below-grade commercial mall beneath.

idea was to create a master plan that stitched these three districts and identities together, and the developers decided the major strategy for achieving this goal would be through en-gaging public space.

To that end, the developers were deter-mined to produce a master plan for the public areas first, as a way of guiding the distribu-tion of the buildings. As Catella recalls: “We did this before we even considered architec-

ture. The classic mistake many make is to think of the shiny project first. But we really focused on that basic master plan and spent a lot of time with design architect Cesar Pelli on this.” Architect Kohn Pedersen Fox was en-gaged to do the same on the Varesine area, as was Boeri Studio, which undertook the master plan of the Isola district. Meanwhile Studio LAND, Gehl, and EDAW planned the public spaces and pedestrian areas.

During the second phase of the design, when the buildings were sketched into place, the developers decided that more traditional build-ings would be built at the edges of the site, with buildings gradually becoming more modern and high rise toward the centre of the new area. This design would ensure that the project blended into the existing surroundings in a sensitive way, thus respecting the area’s character and sense of history.

Hines Italia SGR views the Porta Nuova project as a natural evolution of the existing neighbourhoods and sought to safeguard and enhance those areas through high-quality public space. “The aim is to produce not just an area of transit between three neighbourhoods, but a destination in its own right, a venue where the people of Milan will come to meet and social-ize,” says one of its marketing brochures.

Porta Nuova is sited within a transportation hub, with two railway stations, three metro lines, one underground light railway, and numerous road and tram services surrounding it. The devel-opers aim to make the project a hub where people arriving from outside Milan leave their vehicles in the car park and continue their journeys around the city on public transportation.

Development Team

The development team is led by Hines, the global privately owned real estate investment firm, which contributed development, technical, and management expertise for the project. Hines also provided equity, through the Hines Europe-an Development Fund, to purchase the strategic land. This was one of the American company’s first developments in Italy.

Other initial sponsors of the development included financial services firm Gruppo Unipol SAI, the TIAA pension fund, the MHREC real estate fund, Italian property firm Galotti, and COIMA. Over the years, COIMA has acted as co-development manager and investor in Porta Nuova Isola and is now property and facility manager for the Porta Nuova complex.

“The initial investors, who started the develop-ment phase, have now exited the project. If com-pared to most of the development projects started in the same period, which has been characterized by one of the deeper and longer crises after the Second World War, it is evident that Porta Nuova has outperformed expectations,” says Matteo Ravà, managing director, Hines Italia.

The award-winning Bosco Verticale residential complex in the Isola district comprises two residential towers and a vertical forest of 20,000 square metres (215,000 sq ft).

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Development Background and Approvals

In 2005, during the early days of development, Hines needed to contend with a public that was quite sour towards the regeneration scheme. As Claudio Saibene, construction director at Hines, recalls: “Manfredi Catella had years of intense meetings to explain the project and our aims. He was trying to convince people that what we want-ed to create was something better for the city.”

Public approvals. Particularly fierce in their opposition were the residents of Isola, whose protests against previous planning propos-als had resulted in legal proceedings. By then, Hines had purchased two sections of the Isola neighbourhood with approval for the overall zoning of the area.

During public meetings, Catella observed that while the developers’ urban plan, building density, and types of buildings were being decided on, the team could work on improvements concerning green space, transport infrastructure, and design. Between May and December 2006, they had about 150 meetings, streamlining into specific working groups over time. Through these meetings, the residents’ main concerns became clear: ensuring that the architecture was sensitive to the pre-exist-ing neighbourhood, that enough green and public space was preserved, and that the district would not be split by an urban highway.

To communicate the developers’ plans to the city’s residents, the developers refurbished the Riccardo Catella Foundation building, a 19th-century railway depot, as a matter of first priority. The building was created as an information point and was viewed as a crucial element in building a relationship between the development team and the public. Existing spaces were adapted as dis-play areas, meeting rooms, and recreation rooms. Today the building still houses a huge 3D model of the project. A digital platform was also set up to communicate information about the project and update citizens. In addition, newsletters were published periodically, and letters were sent regu-larly to the residents and shopkeepers close to the project area.

Early site work. Provisional excavation work began in late 2006, as the design process contin-ued. Because the Garibaldi area, which was the first to be developed, had previously been in pub-lic ownership, it was full of public utilities such as electrical cables, sewage lines, electrical substa-

tions, and telephone lines. Railway tunnels, which ran from Garibaldi station, also created a sheer six-metre (seven-yard) drop from the street.

“We had first to work on moving the public utilities. For three years we worked hard with the municipality to agree about how we could keep the traffic moving along the main road that cut across the area, as well as move the utilities without inter-rupting the services,” recalls Claudio Saibene.

A top priority was to ensure no disruption occurred to any of the roads or public services on account of the building work. Before the end of the design phase and before the tender for the general contractor, the developers started mov-ing and rebuilding the facilities, doing excava-tion work, and building the diaphragm walls around the area. When the general contractor was handed the site in 2008, all this preliminary work had been completed.

Where the Garibaldi plaza is now located, a road originally cut through the centre. Hines had to reroute the road and divert the infrastructure. The main road, which still travels under the proj-ect today, was diverted about 14 times to help the traffic continue without interruption. The develop-ers also needed to work around two metro sub-way stations, whose lines crossed the project.

Developing the structures above the sub-way lines was an important challenge for the project engineer. The affected buildings could not have foundations directly above the train; therefore the developers built foundations on 110 poles, 70 metres (230 ft) deep, to circum-vent the issue.

Besides the many issues connected to the existing subways and services, in 2006 the de-velopers entered discussions with the munici-pality over a newly planned metro line that was

The developers sought to respect the scale of the surrounding neighbourhoods by placing low-rise residential buildings adjacent to these areas, such as near the Corso Como fashion street.

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destined to cross the middle of the Garibaldi site. Two years of technical discussion ensued, whereupon an agreement was struck with the municipality to change the location of the sub-way. The agreement was crucial to enabling Porta Nuova developers to continue their con-struction in parallel with the construction of the planned new metro line.

Because the railway running from Garibaldi railway station was not below ground, the de-signer created a podium above the street level to reconnect the north and south sections of the district. Notes Manfredi: “We needed a big area with no cars, and we wanted to have the most sustainable area we could build. This was the target we had set for the master plan designer, which decided to put all vehicles and railways

below a new zero level. We struggled to negoti-ate this outcome, but the result was good. We wanted the most sustainable project in Milan—and in Italy.”

Phasing and development time frame. Porta Nuova was developed in three key phas-es. The first agreements with the municipality were signed in July 2005 for the Porta Nuova Garibaldi area, with architectural approval in 2008. This area was completed around 2012.

Porta Nuova Varesine was initiated next, with agreements signed at the end of 2006 for this phase. Excavation work began in 2007, and completion was in May 2014. Isola was last to be constructed and was completed in October 2014.

Planning and Design

After settling on the master plan and how to re-connect the existing areas of the city, the devel-opers began selecting architects and planning the details for the three mixed-use areas that constitute the Porta Nuova project.

Choosing the architects. In this second level of the design process, a database was created of 500 architects from all over the world, arranged according to their experience and capabilities. Then these firms were clus-tered into groups of about ten, according to which firms were most suitable for the specific roles on site, such as the best for low rise, the best for high rise, and so on.

SITE PL AN

The master plan for the development, highlighting the three districts and the large amount of green space in the project.


Final selection was organized through a competition, which encouraged participation by architects under the age of 40, to promote emerg-ing talent. The competition resulted in a final group of more than 30 architectural firms, includ-ing the U.S. firm Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, for the design of three LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold office towers on the UniCredit Campus that surrounds the central Piazza Gae Aulenti; the U.K. office of Kohn Ped-ersen Fox Associates for the Business District Va-resine, which comprises the 30-storey Diamond Tower; Miami’s Arquitectonica for the 143-metre (469 ft) Solaria and Aria residential towers with the Italian Caputo Partnership studio; William McDonough + Partners for the 11-storey office building in the Isola district; Houston-based Muñoz Albin architects for the three residential buildings at Le Residenze di Corso Como; and the Boeri Studio of Milan for the design of the Bosco Verticale (Vertical Forest) towers.

Master plan breakdown. As noted, the plan includes three distinct districts. Garibaldi com-prises a 92,000-square-metre (990,280 sq ft) podium built above street level (with three levels of lower-level parking); three office towers on the UniCredit Campus, which offer combined re-tail space; and the “White Wave” office building, designed by Piuarch. The site also has a residen-tial complex called Le Residenze di Corso Como, with about 50 units.

Porta Nuova Varesine is divided into two lots and sits on a large three-level podium. The first lot is the office district, and lot two is the residential element. The office element compris-es the 31-floor, 28,300-square-metre (304,600 sq ft) Diamond Tower—the tallest steel building in Italy—and two nine-storey buildings of about 12,000 square metres (130,000 sq ft) each. A 125,000-square-metre (1.3 million sq ft) base-ment includes 5,800 square metres (62,000 sq ft) of space for cultural and institutional events and four levels of parking. The second lot com-prises six urban villas and three residential towers of 15, 17, and 34 floors. Connecting the Varesine and Garibaldi districts is a pedestrian bridge 68 metres (223 ft) long and 5.4 metres (18 ft) wide that can be accessed from the street below by cyclists and pedestrians via elevators. It was completed in 2013.

Porta Nuova Isola is predominantly an office and residential complex with 1,770 square me-tres (19,000 sq ft) of social (affordable) housing, 250 square metres (2,700 sq ft) of retail, two The Varesine district features a linear park with office uses on one side and residential uses on the other.


buildings of luxury residential, and the Business District Isola with 8,500 square metres (91,500 sq ft) of office space. The district also includes Bosco Verticale, two towers of 19 and 27 floors, respectively, and a basement that provides three levels of parking.

Design principles. Distinct design principles operate at the heart of this project. One of them is what the developers term “humanism,” which is defined as putting people at the centre: from “mi-cro details to buildings to urban infrastructure.” A key objective in public spaces, for instance, was to reconnect neighbourhoods and make one seamless, high-quality pedestrian space.

As Pietro Perelli-Rocco, managing director of the project for Hines Italia, observes of this approach: “We have managed to attract tour-ists, bring more stakeholders to the city, and retain corporations.” He describes high-quality space as the backbone of the development, and 170,000 square metres (1.8 million sq ft) of the 290,000-square-metre (3.1 million sq ft) land area is reserved as a pedestrian public area, in-cluding a 90,000-square-metre (969,000 sq ft) public park and five kilometres (3 mi) of bicycle paths. The arrangement of uses around these areas was instrumental in reconnecting the sur-rounding neighbourhoods and determined the building volumes.

As Perelli-Rocco explains: “We approached real estate near the public elements in a hori-zontal fashion. After we sorted out this horizon-tal design and the connections, we gave it the borders and defined the volumes of the build-ings that came later.”

Pedestrianisation. To deliver Porta Nuova as an entirely pedestrian district, the project was developed around a podium that is raised six metres (20 ft) above street level with a plaza about 100 metres (328 ft) in diameter. As part of the overall reorganization of the Garibaldi-Repubblica area, the flat-top structure interfaces with the large park and contains the access to the new MM5 Garibaldi Station.

The flat-top podium is also interconnected with the new Porta Nuova tunnel, which passes beneath the podium. A four-lane tunnel routes traffic under the public park, keeping the up-per level completely traffic free. The bridge that connects the Garibaldi and Varesine districts is also built six metres (20 ft) above street level. A gradually inclining path from the Isola district takes pedestrians to the central plaza from street

level. In addition, elevators for pedestrians and bicycles allow access from the roads below.

The main retail area, which snakes around the main plaza, can be reached in a few minutes from Milan’s main shopping centre on foot, along a single pedestrian thoroughfare.

Site density. Building height increases to-wards the centre of the project, which is why of-fice buildings are largely arranged in the middle of the site. In this manner, high-rise modern architecture does not disrupt the relatively low-rise buildings around the edges of the project. Likewise, low-rise residential urban villas define the southern perimeter of the site boundary at Varesine. The residential buildings at Le Resi-denze di Corso Como, located near the Corso Como contemporary and luxury fashion district, are between just three and five storeys.

In the transition from the historical to the vertical, modern centre, the developers were careful about what materials were chosen, adopting constituents coherent with the ar-chitecture of Milan at the edges, introducing more modern materials towards the centre, and eventually using glass and steel in high-rise elements of the project. The highest point of the project is around the central Piazza Gae Aulenti, where the 32-storey UniCredit Tower culminates in an 80-metre (262 ft) sculptural, stainless-steel spire.

Sustainable features. Central to this prin-ciple of humanism was sustainability. Putting

humans at the centre of design is, according to Catella, the best-practice model for sustainable development in any large project. Besides the public space and green transportation connec-tions offered by the surrounding rail and bus services, Porta Nuova uses the most advanced alternative energy solutions for residents and workers on site.

The major issue for the developers, in light of their aim to obtain LEED Gold ratings for buildings, was to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions, which meant they needed to avoid boilers or use of gas. Porta Nuova uses a sys-tem of groundwater wells for geothermal energy.

Hines opted to use the water table as the main source of air conditioning and heat-ing for all the buildings across the project. It installed wells, 45 metres (148 ft) deep, which draw water into a loop that has a direct connection to a technical room, where a heat pump is situated. Here the water is chilled for air conditioning during summer or heated for hot water. “This system means that for 360 days per year you can have chilled and hot water and without any carbon dioxide emis-sions or pollution on site because you only use a modest amount of electricity and the water table,” says Saibene.

At Isola, energy efficiency has been tailored to work with office workers and residents on site. Here the water table is used to supply one central station, which provides heating and cooling to all buildings. Because demand for

The entire development is designed as a pedestrian district.


heating in offices and residential buildings dif-fers, the station supplies more to homes in the early morning with hot water during wintertime and then more to the offices at 9 a.m. Then at 6 p.m., when the offices close, the supply is mostly diverted back to the residential units, optimizing the energy consumption. “Having a unique energy centre is crucial also during middle seasons as you can reuse the same hot and cool water among offices and homes in a very efficient way,” says Saibene.

The architectural design also embraces the sustainable approach, providing visual exam-ples in areas such as Piazza Gae Aulenti. Here a continuous flowing circle of seating surrounds a vast pool, 60 metres (197 ft) in diameter. The water, which is lit to reflect the colours of the seasons, cascades two floors down and sur-rounds light wells that connect the square with the basement retail and car park. Not only does the sound of the water mitigate noise pollution from surrounding roads, but the wells also bring light and air to the basement level.

“In Italy you must bring natural ventilation to below-grade parking. Given this require-ment, we studied how to create a good archi-tectural design out of these holes. Architect Pelli’s idea was to add water and have seating all around. As well as bringing a sustainable accent to the piazza, it obliges people to walk around, below the canopy and close to the shops,” says Saibene.

The nearby canopy has its own sustain-able features, too. Photovoltaic cells have been inserted into its glass roof and provide electric-ity to the nearby building. These cells generate energy for the public utilities.

Porta Nuova is one of the first pilot proj-ects to apply LEED to a large urban regen-eration project in Italy. All the Porta Nuova buildings are pre-certified LEED, and 24 are certified LEED Gold.

Isola’s Bosco Verticale. A signature ele-ment in the project is the Isola district’s Bosco Verticale, the award-winning residential com-plex comprising two residential towers that rise respectively to 112 and 80 metres (367 and 262 ft). As well as a combined 113 homes, the proj-ect houses 480 large and medium-sized trees, 250 smaller trees, 14,000 floral plants provid-ing ground cover, and 5,000 shrubs. The proj-ect is one of the world’s first examples of how to create a forest with skyscraper architecture. Trees had to be potted and then cast in the concrete during the construction of the Bosco Verticale balconies.

At Gae Aulenti in the Garibaldi district, a vast pool cascades two floors down, surrounding light wells that connect the square with the basement retail space and car park.


The terraces, which contain the trees, account for a third of the gross floor area of the towers.

“Boeri Studio, which designed the master plan for the Isola district, challenged Hines to have this forest built across all the balconies. No one had ever achieved this situation. We had to design and realize trees up to seven/nine metres [23/30 ft] high, placed in concrete pots at the edge of each balcony,” says Saibene.

The technical challenges of bringing this vision to fruition were manifest. The main engi-neering issue was the weight that the trees and their pots created. Trees had to be potted and then cast in the concrete pots during the con-struction of the balcony, and the balcony had to project more than three metres (10 ft) from the side of the building, which could create a lot of weight at the edge. The point load capacity of the terrace slabs is therefore three times as much as it otherwise would have been.

The tree pots are one metre (3 ft) deep and high, with grass and special systems inside to keep trees firm against the wind. Moreover, for public safety, trees had to be secure at height. During the design process Hines embarked on multiple experiments, testing security with a scale model of the buildings in a wind tunnel in Milan and then at a specialist laboratory in Miami at 1:1 scale, where it sent five trees seven metres (23 ft) tall to be tested in 190-kilometre-per-hour (118 mph) winds.

“That was very useful because it showed us that to avoid wind making the trees fall down it was important to keep the roots of the trees in a motionless structure, and not only that, but we needed to have each tree fixed in three posi-tions,” explains Saibene. The trees are therefore connected to safety cables, which keep swaying at a minimum. Other safety precautions are that tall trees have not been included on the higher balconies, and trees are anchored into the ter-races with cages secured by harnesses.

For maintenance of the trees, a specially designed crane that can reach all balconies from the outside is permanently sited on each tower’s roof. Twice a year, a maintenance pro-gram can be carried out without the need to access the trees by going through apartments. An irrigation system that supplies water and fertilizer to the trees is managed through a centralized building management system.

Not only did the trees have to be suited to the different aspects of the balconies—posi-tioned north, south, east, and west—but they

also needed to be adapted to survive according to their height from the street. Despite all the potential obstacles, the design worked.

The trees have been in place for three years already, and the results are exceptional. Hines began installing the first trees during the con-struction of the towers, using the construction crane to place the trees. “We really got a good result because the trees are growing well and generate a wonderful scenario of the facades. The micro climate of this area is getting advan-

tages, and the trees are providing comfort for those living inside,” says Saibene.

In 2014, Bosco Verticale won the Interna-tional Highrise Award, given every two years to the world’s most beautiful and innovative high rise. “That was a really important award, and we’re really proud of it,” says Saibene.

Varesine balconies and roof gardens. Balconies were important to the design else-where, too. In the Varesine district, the Solaria

In the Garibaldi district, Unicredit Tower’s 80-metre (262 ft) sculptural, stainless-steel spire was put in place by helicopter.


and Aria residential towers offer views to the Alps, to the spires of the Duomo (cathedral), and to the city centre below. The buildings are angled so that the towers and the units avoid directly facing each other. Terraces have been designed to always have a direct view to a lon-ger point of focus, avoiding residents facing one another’s balconies.

A 4,000-square-metre (43,000 sq ft) green roof is the biggest in Milan, positioned in Varesine at ground level to the project and covering a below-grade mall hosting Milan’s most important trade exhibition. Although the roof fronts Le Ville di Porta Nuova residential urban villas, creating a courtyard garden for residents, it is for public use. The garden was designed by LAND in collaboration with Antonio Citterio Patricia Viel and Partners, which developed the mall below the roof garden.

UniCredit spire in Garibaldi. At the top of the tallest of three towers on the UniCredit Campus is an 80-metre (262 ft) sculptural, stainless-steel spire that makes the project’s

tallest building visible from more than ten kilometres (6 mi) away.

Its installation was no easy feat. Because a tower crane could not reach that height, the de-velopers enlisted the help of a specialist helicop-ter. The spire, built on site in five sections, was carried from ground level to the tower and placed in position, where six men were waiting to manu-ally fix the stainless-steel panels into place.

“I remember this day very, very well. There is a film of this happening, and even watching it again makes me nervous,” says Saibene. “There was no room for any mistakes; it had to be ab-solutely millimetre perfect because people were standing up there. We repeated and repeated the procedure on paper, and the night before we were with the pilot practicing the procedures over and over. During the installation I was down on the ground watching and communicat-ing with the pilot. This was a critical, technical one-off. It had never been done before in Italy. We designed the spire before we knew how we might get it up there.”

Public park at the centre. While the design for the public park area was being finalized, the developers turned it into Wheatfield by Ameri-can artist Agnes Denes. A temporary environ-mental installation promoted by the Fondazi-one Riccardo Catella, in partnership with the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi and Confagricol-tura, the five-hectare (12 ac) wheat field ex-ists amid the high rises and futuristic build-ings of Milan’s new skyline. A public showing drew more than 5,000 local residents, and the opening of a footpath restored this area to the city after 50 years of closure. Wheatfield calls public attention to values such as sharing food and energy, protecting the land, and foster-ing social and economic growth in a way that preserves optimal quality of life for individuals and communities.

The park itself, called Giardini di Porta Nu-ova and located on city-owned land, is expected to be completed in 2016. The park design fea-tures a variety of criss-crossing paths that con-nect various points in and around the site.

Wheatfield is a temporary installation on the 90,000-square-metre (969,000 sq ft) park site. The park is scheduled for completion in 2016.


Development Finance

Financing for construction of the project was secured during 2005 and 2006, just before the 2008–2009 financial crisis, enabling a level of leverage for the project in an average ra-tio of 20 percent equity and 80 percent debt to finance project costs. As the project pro-gressed, it was significantly deleveraged. As an example, the Garibaldi component, after the successful refinancing done in summer 2014, now has an average leverage ratio in the region of 45 percent equity and 55 percent debt. The Porta Nuova development is now reportedly valued in excess of €2 billion ($2.2 billion). As noted, the development equity was provided by the initial sponsors, including the Hines Euro-pean Development Fund, financial services firm Gruppo Unipol SAI, the TIAA pension fund, the MHREC and HICOF real estate funds, Italian property firm Galotti, and COIMA.

The development of Porta Nuova was also financed with loans from a number of banks. Garibaldi received construction loans from Italian banks Banca Intesa, Banca Popolare di Milano, and Banca Monte dei Paschi di Si-ena. Varesine was funded by Hypothekenbank Frankfurt (formerly EuroHypo), UniCredit, and

Banca Popolare di Milano. Monte dei Paschi di Siena provided all the debt for the develop-ment of Isola. Currently, long-term financing for the Garibaldi component is provided by a pool of banks including UniCredit, BNP Pari-bas, Banca IMI, Société Générale, and Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

No pre-leasing was required to secure the construction loans, and the underwriting by the banks was provided on a nonrecourse basis. No special financing initiatives—such as mezzanine or loan guarantees—were required by the funding banks.

The interest rates for the financing have changed over the life of the project, varying from 110 to 180 basis points over Euribor. The refinancing has been secured according to the best market conditions applicable as of date with spreads in the range of 200 basis points

over Euribor.No public financing was obtained for the

project. The energy efficiency and performance of the buildings have allowed some benefits to be obtained in terms of optimization of certain municipality fees.

Matteo Ravà says the financial crisis had no material effect on the project from a debt or equity standpoint: “There were no major issues

during this time due to the ownership structure and thanks to our very solid investors and very supportive banks.”

In 2009, to provide more liquidity to the investment and more transparency and regula-tion, the ownership was re-organized to set up three separate closed-end real estate funds: Porta Garibaldi, Porta Varesine, and Porta Isola. Hines SGR became the asset manager for all three entities.

Now that development is largely completed, the investor profile has changed as investors with a long-term investment horizon have come on board. Qatar Investment Authority acquired 40 percent of Porta Nuova in 2013, and then in March 2015 it acquired the remaining 60 percent stake from the former investors.

Marketing, Leasing, and Management

Though the development phase is now complet-ed, Hines has remained involved in the manage-ment of the property and is in what it terms the “core phase,” where the initial investors have exited as planned and been replaced with long-term investors.

More than three-quarters of the office and retail property is leased or sold, with the value of rents setting Milan’s prime central business district values. For the residential component, 70 percent of the units available were sold dur-ing the development phase.

For the remaining residential units, Qatar Investment Authority’s long-term strategy has meant leasing the units as well as selling is under evaluation. Ravà explains: “The value and prices have increased since the beginning and are now at the top level of the city, averaging more than €9,000 per square metre for residential. This is a premium of more than 80 percent, compared with the surrounding area, and confirms the quality of the project; 100 metres [330 ft] from our residen-tial buildings, the prices are almost half that.”

Perelli-Rocco says the project has been “very important” to the city of Milan in capturing value and GDP: “The project was vital in generat-ing an attraction for citizens and tourists, and has been important in its ability to retain talent.”

Nike, UniCredit, Google, and Samsung are some of the companies that Porta Nuova has managed to retain in or bring to the city, which is a sign of how competitive a project can be in retaining talent. Part of this success was due to

The luxury Solaria and Aria residential towers in the Varesine district are positioned to avoid directly facing each another.


the Hines’s interest in good public transporta-tion: the project sits on infrastructure with fast train connections to many major cities.

Offices. The main tenant in Porta Nuova is UniCredit, which is currently leasing the three Porta Nuova Garibaldi towers, located in Piazza Gae Aulenti, where 4,000 employees have been relocated from 25 different previ-ous office buildings.

The “White Wave” building is a multitenant office building occupied by several retail and luxury companies, including Nike, Alexander McQueen, and Leading Luxury Group.

Samsung has agreed to move into one of the two low-rise buildings in Porta Nuova Varesine designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox. Several inter-national financial, pharmaceutical, and luxury groups, such as HSBC, China Construction Bank, Canali, Shire, Celgene, and Factory Mutual, have moved into the other multitenant building.

Google and Pandora consolidated their Ital-ian operations in Porta Nuova Isola by moving their headquarters into the 11-storey office build-ing designed by William McDonough + Partners.

“There has been virtually no Class A building in office in Italy to date,” Catella told Property In-vestor Europe in 2012, adding: “We are in a niche and there’s a real shortage of this product. Until

now, tenants who want to be in the city centre had to occupy old and small buildings. Now we have a building that is very well connected and very ef-ficient for the first time in the history of Milan.”

Residential. Sales of the residential compo-nent were not interrupted by the financial crisis. When the first apartments went on sale at Solaria

in 2010, the developer sold one apartment a day in the first month for prices between €7,500 and €11,000 per square metre.

Over 80 percent of the reservations for apartments have come from people living in Milan. Catella attributed the popularity of the residential properties to the fact that “atten-tion is paid to every detail in the design of the buildings and interiors, a custom design col-laboration with the ‘Created in Italy’ Dolce Vita Homes initiative; the assistance and exclusive services reserved for prospective buyers help make Porta Nuova an innovative product.”

Residenze Porta Nuova is a consultant team dedicated exclusively to marketing and selling the homes at Porta Nuova. They applied innova-tive methods to ensure high standards of advice and assistance during negotiations.

Customer relationship management soft-ware, tailored for Residenze Porta Nuova, was developed to allow the management of the re-lationship with potential buyers up to the pur-chase. These efforts allowed identification of the profile of future residents of Porta Nuova, which permitted a supply-and-demand analy-sis of the residential market to be performed.

Retail. Retail units are occupied by the top contemporary luxury fashion brands, such as Dsquared2, Maison Martin Margiela, Les Hommes, Moschino, Hugo Boss, Replay, Colmar, Nike, Costume National, and Christian Louboutin.The tallest building of the Business District Varesine is Diamond Tower, a 30-storey, 137-metre-high (449 ft),

diamond-shaped tower.

The “White Wave” building in the Garibaldi district contains ground-floor retail space and offices above.


Food retailers range from the most high-end representatives, such as Ristorante Berton (the restaurant of Michelin-starred chef Andrea Berton) and Replay the Stage, to more acces-sible locations, such as Bio Italia, Feltrinelli RED, Illy Caffè, and Grom.

A cluster of services rounds out the retail with providers such as Esselunga, one of the best Italian supermarkets; Feltrinelli bookstore; Muji; Sephora; UniCredit; the fitness club Natked Reset Body; Womo Bullfrog; Samsung; and CDI, a diagnostic medical center.

Observations and Lessons Learned

The extensive public spaces of Porta Nuova are busy day and night, with a complete mixture of people: workers, shoppers, residents, teenagers, joggers, people spending time relaxing by the fountains, or people merely passing through.

For Manfredi Catella, the buzz and life of the project confirm the success of the regeneration and that his father and Gerald Hines were right to see potential, over a decade earlier, in this once problematic piece of the city. “I personally held hundreds of meetings with the citizens of Milan, and there was a long process of discus-sion. We knew consensus would come by dem-onstrating in practice that we wanted something more for the city. And Porta Nuova is now loved by the city. It is becoming iconic in Milan. The people are enjoying what we have built and that is the best indicator there is.”

Observing the way the development has be-come rooted in the public consciousness, Saibene says the project is “becoming the new centre of the city.” A pedestrian road that connects Porta Nuova to the Duomo, a popular tourist attraction in the historic heart of the city, enables footfall to travel easily from one popular section of the city to an-other. Public events at the project, which take place two to three times every week, have established it as an important social space.

The public spaces and the activities they generate were critical to the success of the project. Fashion shows, rock concerts, art fairs, and food markets are among some of the activities that draw footfalls. As Perelli-Rocco explains: “The backbone of Porta Nuova is the public space, and we were right to focus on that. There’s now a sense of ownership among the citizens of Milan. That is what makes the project successful, and it led tenants such as UniCredit,

Samsung, Google, and Nike to the site. The suc-cess came after the public spaces.”

Porta Nuova was brought to fruition during one of the worst economic crises in the modern Western world. The initial investors, which have now exited the project following the comple-tion of the development, have gotten all their invested capital back with a solid return, despite the crisis. Hines says the development is now performing above expectations. Taking a longer-term view on a major project proved to be the right decision for these investors.

Perelli-Rocco says this success is partly due to tight planning from the outset: “Real estate is a multidisciplinary endeavour. To get through cycles and be successful, you need everything solidly worked through from day one; otherwise any shake can collapse what you want to do. You need one big vision that you test ahead of the game, in all the downside scenarios. We thought about equity, debt, design, zoning, construction, and marketing at the same time and as all part and parcel of that one vision.”

Risk management was also intrinsic to that rigorous planning process. Ravà says that any action taken—from design to construction, from financing to placement—was analysed from sev-eral points of view to consider how it would affect the project as a whole and the possible scenarios that any such decisions would have implied.

“Quantitative and qualitative analysis consid-ered all the scenarios of any key decisions,” says Ravà. “During the design phase, for instance, when a variation to the original plan was pro-posed, careful analysis of costs, financing sourc-es, and economic impacts was performed. In ne-gotiating contracts, too, very strong attention has always been paid to protecting the funds and the projects from potential negative consequences.”

When the Qatar Investment Authority agreed to buy the remaining 60 percent stake of Porta Nuova in March 2015, gaining full control of the develop-ment, Catella told the press the transaction showed that “Italian real estate can compete with other countries in attracting international capital.”

Porta Nuova has also, perhaps, achieved what Catella and his late father set out to do all those years ago: prove to the world that the Italians have renewed their talent for great ur-ban design.

OTHER PARTICIPANTSPublic realm design/landscape architectsGehl ArchitectsCopenhagen, Denmarkgehlarchitects.com

LAND, Landscape Architecture Nature Development Milan, Italywww.landsrl.com

EDAWHaddington, East Lothian, United Kingdomwww.e-architect.co.uk/architects/edaw

General contractors Porta Nuova GaribaldiColombo Costruzioniwww.colombo-costruzioni.eu/

Porta Nuova Varesine COVAR, a consortium between CMB and Unieco:

CMB (Cooperative Muratori e Braccianti de Carpi)www.cmbcarpi.it

Uniecowww.unieco.it

Porta Nuova IsolaColombo Costruzioni www.colombo-costruzioni.eu/

Structural engineersMSC Associati SrlArup Italia

Civil engineersAdamsonTekne SpAJacobs Engineering

Interviewees Manfredi Catella, CEO, Hines Italia SGR;

honorary president, COIMA

Claudio Saibene, director–procurement and conceptual construction management, COIMA SGR

Matteo Ravà, managing director–fund management, COIMA SGR

Pietro Perelli-Rocco, managing director–project management, Hines Italia Srl

PhotosMarco Garofalo, Agostino Oslo, and Beppe Raso


PRO JECT INFORMATION

Development timeline Month/year

Planning started 1999

Land assembly began 2003

Municipal agreements signed for Garibaldi district July 2005

Land assembly completed 2006

Financing secured 2006

Garibaldi excavation started Late 2006

Municipal agreements signed for Varesine district Late 2006

Varesine excavation started 2007

Construction started 2008

Ownership reorganized 2009

Garibaldi district completed 2012

Qatar Investment Authority acquires 40% of Porta Nuova 2013

Varesine district completed May 2014

Isola district completed October 2014

Qatar Investment Authority acquires remaining 60% stake 2015

Land use plan

Site area (sq m/sq ft)

Buildings 120,000/1.3 million

Public and pedestrian areas* 170,000/1.8 million

Total 290,000/3.1 million

*Includes public park of 90,000 sq m (969,000 sq ft)

Building area

Use Building area (sq m/sq ft)

Office 140,000/1.5 million

Retail and cultural 40,000/430,445

Residential 403 units

Parking 80,000/861,113 (3,000 spaces)

Total GBA 360,000/3.9 million

District/uses

Garibaldi district Office (sq m/sq ft) Retail (sq m/sq ft) Residential (sq m/sq ft)

Business District Garibaldi E1/E2 (White Wave) 1 office/retail building 11,200/120,556 2,800/30,139

Unicredit Campus 3 office/retail buildings 67,000/721,182 9,000/96,875

La Corte Verde di Corso Como 1 residential building, 32 units 4,929/53,055

Le Residenze di Corso Como 3 residential buiildings, 50 units 1,400/15,069 5,398/58,104

Podium 92,000 sq m (990,280 sq ft)

Varesine district

Business District Veresine 3 office/retail buildings 51,000/548,959 2,000/21,528

Diamond Tower 30-storey building 28,000/301,389 300/3,229

Two mid-rise office buildings 2 nine-storey buildings 23,000/247,570 1,700/18,299

Solea 1 residential building, 33 units 1,000/10,764 6,081/65,455

Solaria 1 residential building, 100 units 1,000/10,764 19,122/205,827

Aria 1 residential building, 42 units 1,600/17,222 7,645/82,290

Le Ville di Porta Nuova 6 residential buildings, 6 units 8,570/92,247

Cultural and event space (the Mall) 5,800 sq m (62,431 sq ft)

Isola district

Business District Isola 1 office building 8,500/91,493 250/2,691

Bosco Verticale 2 residential towers, 113 units 33,000/355,209

Le Residenze dei Giardini 27 residential units of various types 3,329/35,833

Social housing 1,770/19,052

Incubatore per l’Arte 1 building, 800 sq m (8,600 sq ft), arts/culture

La Casa della Memoria 1 building, 2,530 sq m (27,233 sq ft), library

Riccardo Catella Foundation 1 building, 1,327 sq m (14,284 sq ft), arts/culture


PRO JECT INFORMATION

Key retail tenants

Esselunga Supermarket

Colmar Retail

Costume National Retail

Dsquared2 Retail

Hugo Boss Retail

Les Hommes Retail

Louboutin Retail

Maison Martin Margiela Retail

Moschino Retail

Nike Retail

Samsung Retail

Sephora Retail

Womo Bullfrog Retail

Bio Italia Restaurant

Cappelletti Restaurant

Grom Restaurant

Illy Caffè Restaurant

RED Feltrinelli Restaurant

Ristorante Berton Restaurant

Trenta Polenta Restaurant

Replay the Stage Retail and restaurant

Natked Gym/fitness

Major office tenants

Alexander McQueen

Canali

Celgene

China Construction Bank

Google

HSBC

Leading Luxury Group

Nike

Pandora

Samsung

Shire

UniCredit

Residential information

Number of units 403

Percentage sold (2015) 70%

Typical sales price €9,000 per sq m

Financing information

Equity/debt ratio

Initial ratio 20% equity/80% debt

2014 Garibaldi ratio 45% equity/55% debt

Debt capital sources–Garibaldi Notes

Banca Intesa Construction

Banca Popolare di Milano Construction

Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena Construction

UniCredit Long term

BNP Paribas Long term

Banca IMI Long term

Société Générale Long term

Bank of America Merrill Lynch Long term

Debt capital sources–Varesine

Hypothekenbank Frankfurt

UniCredit

Banca Popolare di Milano

Debt capital sources–Isola

Monte dei Paschi di Siena

Equity capital sources

Hines European Development Fund During development

Gruppo Unipol SAI During development

TIAA pension fund During development

MHREC fund During development

HICOF fund During development

Galotti During development

COIMA During development

Qatar Investment Authority After completion

Porta Nuova estimated value in 2015 €2 billion


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