Two years after a fire destroyed Portimão Retail Park, the stationery and office supplies company Staples is opening a store in Parchal, Lagoa.
Staples’ choice of location in a different municipality is a blow to Portimão council which is in need of all the rates income it can get its hands on as it struggles with over €130 million of debt.
The reconstruction of the Portimão Retail Park will cost an estimated €20 million but has yet to start.
The official explanation in April 2013 was that money needs to be collected from various insurers, this was according to the president of the real estate company that manages the site.
The 2012 fire destroyed outlets of Continent, Moviflor, Radio Popular, DeBorla, Staples, Aki and Decathlon but the rebuilding is held up by multiple insurers.
In the meantime, retailers are making their own arrangements, many have waited long enough including Staples which has invested €2 million in a 1,200 m2 refurbishment of the old E.Leclerc supermarket site in Parchal.
The 25 Staples employees displaced by the 2012 disaster are coming back to staff the new unit which opens in Parchal on September 12th.
As for the old retail park site across the bridge in Portimão, "our intention is to rebuild the commercial space as soon as possible, but for that we need about €20 million," said Rui Alpalhão last April, since which, silence....
Alpalhão is the boss of the management company FundBox which ran the retail park but "has no capital to start rebuilding, and is dependent on insurance payments from insurers. We are trying to maximise the compensation payable but it has not been an easy process because many insurers are involved, some of them foreign."
The Judicial Police concluded that the fire at the retail park in Portimão was as a result of an electrical fault that started a fire that spread rapidly to the neighbouring stores, destroying them all.
The Portimão site has been cleared of the twisted metal and debris left after the fire, but still is fenced off awaiting its fate.
At least now the old E.Leclerc site in Parchal will have some new life and will not be turned into another Chinese shop, the rumour that has been circulating for months.
