One of Almería’s most beautiful buildings, the Casa Ferrera, is up for sale at 3.5 million euros. It’s the stunning building which borders one edge of the Nicolás Salmerón park.
The Casa Ferrera was built in 1900 as an over-the-top iron warehouse, and was converted in 1913 by Cartagenian businessman Emilio Ferrera López-Mesas, who reopened it as Almería’s first department store. Emilio arrived in Almería as a fresh faced 18 year old youngster in 1902, and managed to become rich through the export of iron ore. He later developed his businesses into department stores and restaurants. He died in the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, but left behind a thriving business empire.
It has some 2.110 square meters of ground space on two stories and still boasts its original advertising frescoes and mosaics which are designed to catch the early morning sun. They were built as adverts for early products. The building also boasted Almería’s first public flushing toilets. The business became a target for thieves in the mid 1920’s due to the large amount of cash it handled daily – in one famous holdup, thieves made off with 12.000 pesetas, a veritable fortune.
Nowadays the building hosts the Almería Guild of Architects, who have a contract until 2020, two discos and a popular restaurant, the El Parque.
The owner of the building, Pablo Belmonte Quesada, who used to work for Renfe, earns €88.000 a year in rents, but has to pay the highest IBI in the city: €11.318 a year. He wants to sell it to retire peacefully and not worry about the building.