Editor’s Note
Cartier, the renowned French jeweler under Richemont, is set to open a new 170-square-meter boutique this month on the ground floor of Madrid’s Canalejas Galleries, marking another milestone in the luxury center’s development.
The Canalejas Galleries are progressing, step by step. The center will host the new store of the French jewelry company Cartier, owned by the luxury conglomerate Richemont, with a sales point that will open its doors throughout this month, as announced by the company in a statement.
The premises, covering an area of 170 square meters, will be located on the ground floor of the galleries, at number one of the Plaza de Canalejas and will be the fourth sales point for the jeweler in Spain. In the country, Cartier currently operates with a store at number 83 Paseo de Gracia (Barcelona), as well as one on Serrano Street (Madrid) and in Plaza de Cort (Palma de Mallorca).
The Canalejas Madrid Center was originally scheduled to open at the end of 2019, but its launch was postponed until July 30, 2020, due to the complexity of the works and negotiations with the new Madrid City Council.
The center was born with the intention of housing 22 luxury residences, a commercial gallery, and the first Four Seasons hotel in Madrid, with 200 rooms and 26,000 square meters of surface area. Until now, the only operator present in the galleries was Hermès, which in October of that same year installed its second store in Madrid within the architectural complex.
The center, with a surface area of 15,000 square meters, was purchased by Grupo Villar Mir for 225 million euros from Santander. Currently, the construction company OHL and Mohari share ownership of the property and have allocated more than 500 million to build the project. OHL planned to sell its stake but ultimately decided to postpone the operation.
Last April, Richemont appointed a new general manager responsible for Cartier’s business in Spain and Portugal. Nicolás Helly, who was responsible for retail for the French company in Spain between 2011 and 2014, is tasked with driving the development of the jewelry company in Iberia.
Richemont closed the first quarter of the fiscal year with an 18% increase in sales compared to 2019, before the pandemic outbreak.
The Swiss luxury conglomerate recorded triple-digit year-on-year growth, up to 4.397 billion euros, surpassing pre-crisis levels in all markets in which it operates except Europe and Japan.
