Elektra Cómic, expelled from the middle of Madrid to place up vacationer housing | Madrid News | EUROtoday

And submit Instagram with white letters on a black background. It begins with “we are moving”. End with “we count on our support.” Signature of Elektra Cómic, one of the emblematic comics shops in Madrid because it opened on San Bernardo Street 29 years in the past. The homeowners of this enterprise say that an investor has provided double what they have been paying in hire till now for the premises and that their intention is to place vacationer housing as a substitute. When requested by this newspaper, the proprietor of the premises neither confirms nor denies this level. “I can’t say,” he says. The bookstore is unable to match such an aggressive supply.

With its message, revealed on Tuesday, Elektra Cómic pronounces two issues. The most evident, his expulsion from the premises for not having the ability to pay the rental payment regardless of his enterprise success. The most refined one is that the issue of rising rents doesn’t solely have an effect on properties. The closure of economic institutions is reworking the physiognomy of cities.

“The street loses a lot without you,” reads one of many nearly 130 feedback accrued within the farewell publication. “Too bad. That store has been a mandatory stop on all the trips I make to Madrid for years,” says another. Alberto Simón, one of the owners of the business, says that they do not know where they will move because they have not yet managed to find anything, even though they have been looking for another location since June. They hope to continue being in the center, but they expect that their store will be smaller than the current one, which is 250 square meters.

In the summer, the owner of the space told them that they had offered her 4,500 euros to rent the premises. They only paid 2,469, a fairly economical price if you take into account the size of the establishment and the area in which it is located, a few meters from Gran Vía. Furthermore, the owner had never raised their bill, not even in proportion to the CPI. “It is a lower price than the market, but we provided a lot of stability,” explains Simón. “We have never been late with payment,” he adds. According to Simón, both the owner and the administrator of the building, dedicated to offices, told them that the investor’s purpose is to put up tourist homes. They do not know if there is a person or a fund behind the offer. The owner of the premises also did not want to clarify it to this newspaper or whether there will be housing in the future.

One day two people entered the bookstore. One was the president of the community where the business is located and the other, a man who said he was coming to process the Technical Building Inspection (ITE) of the premises. It was a lie. “They were appraising it,” says Simón. This technique is not new. Passing off experts as inspectors is quite common when calculating the value of homes with tenants inside, since they can decide who enters your home and who does not while your lease is in force.

Currently, the regulations allow changing the use of commercial premises to tourist homes through a license. But the new regulations, which will come into effect from June next year, will not grant these types of licenses within the central area. In Madrid, only 7% of holiday apartments are legal.

In the area near San Bernardo Street, where Simón’s store is located, the core of Madrid’s comic culture is concentrated. In a radius of 100 meters around Elektra there is Otaku Center, a bookstore specializing in manga – Japanese comics that are read from right to left – another called Generation X and a new one called Atomizados. There are also stores where books are not sold, but which are part of the world. This is the case of Atlántica, specialized in action figures.

Simón explains that they may wait till the Christmas season is over earlier than leaving. When the time comes, they may have achieved every part potential to stay within the space, though they understand it should be in a a lot smaller location. “We were working well and we are going to continue,” says Simón. The bookstore’s followers will go wherever it strikes, not less than that is what they promise within the feedback of the submit parting.