The purchase of a penthouse in the Chamberí neighborhood by the Community of Madrid to allocate it to temporary institutional “offices” has generated significant criticism from the left against Isabel Díaz Ayuso, whom the regional opposition and even several ministers are asking for explanations amid suspicions that the operation was carried out for “residential and personal use.”
A hypothesis that the regional government categorically denies. On the contrary, the purchase of the property is framed within the renovation of the second floor of the Real Casa de Correos, the seat of the regional Presidency, which will require various office and workspace relocations in the coming months. In Sol they assure that the acquisition of the penthouse, revealed by El País, responds to the need to temporarily house the workspace of senior officials, although it is not ruled out that Ayuso herself might move into this apartment during the works at the Presidency: “It is one of the possibilities.”
An aspect that is not yet decided and which the regional president herself explained this Wednesday: “I still don’t know how we are going to organize it. I don’t know if I will stay in the Ministry of Transport and the minister will go there,” she said referring to the possibility that the Transport Minister, Jorge Rodrigo, temporarily leaves the headquarters of this department, in the Hospital de Maudes, and moves to the penthouse, located on General Martínez Campos promenade.
In any case, Ayuso ruled out that the purchase of the property responds to personal interests, as the left suggests: “I am not going to have an official residence like so many ministers and presidents of autonomous communities. It is not my house, it is not my residence, it is not for me and it was not bought for me,” she said to close what she defined as a “smear campaign.”
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The property was acquired months ago by Planifica Madrid, the public company that manages public works, infrastructure development, and the promotion of urbanized land in the region, as well as the real estate assets of the Community of Madrid. The property, which must undergo renovation, has almost 500 square meters and is currently classified as residential use. The Madrid government has not detailed the cost of the operation.
Sources consulted affirm that these types of moves are common by Planifica Madrid, which buys or sells properties based on the needs of the ministries and departments of the Community of Madrid. The purchase of the Chamberí penthouse is part of the renovation to which the second floor of the Real Casa de Correos will be subjected in the coming weeks, and it is being studied whether, after renovation, the property could be used as a temporary institutional space.
The option that Ayuso moves into this apartment, these sources emphasize, has not been decided and is part of the various possibilities managed by the Community of Madrid. One of the proposals is the one expressed by Ayuso herself: that the offices in Sol temporarily move to Maudes street, one of the ministries with the most space in the government, and that Minister Jorge Rodrigo’s office move to the Martínez Campos penthouse. Another alternative is the relocation of Ayuso and her team to the Casa de Postas, in Pontejos square and adjacent to the Real Casa de Correos, and that its current occupant, the Minister of the Presidency, Miguel Ángel García, move during the renovation to the recently acquired property.
