It was the very last day to decide.
The Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield (URW) group announced on Monday in a press release that the launch of the controversial Triangle Tower project would take place "by the end of the year", with the arrival of the insurer Axa as a financial partner.
URW, which owns the Forum des Halles and many other shopping centers, had until the end of October to sign the construction lease, Paris City Hall said, failing which the project would have been "called into question".
Read also Paris: the Triangle tower, symbol of the concreteization of an already dense 15th arrondissement?
Axa's support enables it to respect "its clear strategy for optimizing the allocation of its resources", he underlines, with reference to its debt reduction strategy.
In fact, without a breath of fresh air from outside, this project worth some 700 million euros, according to estimates circulating in the press, was not guaranteed to see the light of day.
Axa's financial contribution not specified
Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield has suffered greatly from the health crisis and the closure of so-called “non-essential” businesses.
The group's turnover plummeted, before recovering slightly in the third quarter of 2021.
Axa, whose financial contribution was not specified, said he was "proud" to be associated with the construction of the Tour Triangle: "a flagship project for the city of Paris and its region", greeted Isabelle Scemama, head of Axa IM Alts, the division of the French insurer dedicated to alternative investments.
Designed by the Swiss architectural firm Herzog et de Meuron, this 180 m high and 42 storey tower will be erected within the walls of the Porte de Versailles exhibition center, in the 15th arrondissement of Paris.
In particular, it must house a four-star hotel, more than 2,000 m2 of shared workspace (“coworking”), a health center and a cultural space.
The courts opened a preliminary investigation in June for “favoritism” around the concession on which this tower is to be built, which has been the subject of fierce disputes for years.