The tallest building in Bogotá, the South Tower of Bacatá is for sale

On Monday morning, it became known that the tallest building in Colombia, the South Tower of Bacatá, was put up for sale. The hotel and residential project has 67 floors. According to what the developer reported, the sale is made with the aim of compensating the more than 2,000 investors who have a fiduciary rights lawsuit. The building, as agreed under the conditions, will be sold as it stands today; that is, whoever buys it will have the responsibility of completing the construction of 30% of the structure that the project needs.

What Pablo Trujillo, president of Acción Fiduciaria, reported to W Radio is that there are already two firms interested in acquiring the striking property. Although he did not give names, he stressed that it is a foreign investment fund and a construction company. Both companies have a period of 30 days to put together their respective proposals and, from there, it will be defined if there is interest in any of them. After that, 60 days will be allocated to fill out the necessary documents.

The history of this building dates back several years. Around 2008, a brief was published detailing that the future existence of the BD Bacatá tower, a structure that would exceed the height of the popular Colpatria tower. This new building, according to his description, would be the “great infrastructure megaproject of the future”. The tower, initially, was intended as a space for 404 apartments measuring 39 square meters by 112 square meters.

In 2009, however, a year after the promises, problems began to haunt. Through crowdfunding, in which more than 4,200 investors participated, fiduciary rights were acquired to receive profits after the project was delivered, in those days, then, an investment of more than US$20 million was made. The work began to be built in 2011.

By 2018, when the work was already considerably advanced, Venerando Lámelas, the then president of BD Promotores, the project's partner group, assured that a mistake had been made, since deadlines had been set that, in the end, were unlikely to meet, in other words, impossible. By that year it was intended that the work would be 100% finished, however, it was only built just over 50% of it. For this year, in fact, 2022, the work only completes 70% of its final completion.

In 2019, in addition, the lack of resources led the construction company that started the project, Prabyc Ingenieros, to retire from its work and the firm Aluman to begin its work. “When the money for the project ran out, we didn't continue. When the developer was liquidated, we were left owing $25 billion (...) Bacatá is already 60% delivered, the homes and offices are working, the shopping center too” and added that “the only thing that really remains to be finished are the hotels,” said the firm, in the spokesperson of Diego Fernando Prada, Prabyc's partner, in testimonies rescued by La República.

More than $20 billion was owed, so with the hiring of Aluman to finish the works on the façade in addition to the south and north tower. The costs, then, would be covered by assets. In November 2021, several of the investors who had deposited their savings or pensions in the real estate complex highlighted that they had not received the return on their investment for more than ten years. At that time, the decision of the liquidator appointed by the Superintendency of Companies was expected to decide whether to declare investors as creditors or not.

“Among the decisions that the liquidator has would be to tell the owners of the trusts that they are not creditors but contributors, contradicting what the Financial Superintendency of Colombia has reiterated, generating a new train crash; their hotels and commercial areas belong to them with autonomy over their assets. It would be the most convenient for us,” said one of those affected before RCN Radio.

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