After the Athens Ledra, the Paraskevaidis family loses its ‘headquarters’ in Syggrou

of Matinas Harkoftaki

The signs of abandonment are visible on the exterior of the office building in Neos Kosmos near Syggrou Avenue, which previously housed the offices of the hotel company ASTY SA, the arm of the tourist activities of the well-known Cypriot Paraskevaidis family in Greece.

This is a family, which, among other things, associated its name with one of the most famous hotels in Athens, the Ledra Marriott hotel, which was built in the 1980s by businessman George Paraskevaidis and was managed for three decades by Marriott International, which, however, decided to leave in the fall of 2013.

The departure of Marriott, which led to the renaming of the luxury hotel to Athens Ledra, seems to have played a catalytic role in the subsequent course of the main hotel as a short time later and more specifically in the spring of 2014, the owner and management company, ASTY SA, filed an application for inclusion in Article 99 of the Bankruptcy Code.

According to the published financial statements, the company in 2013 had a turnover of 7.9 million euros compared to 10.3 million euros in 2012, but recorded significant losses, which in 2013 increased to 2.81 million. against a loss of € 1.78 million in the previous financial year.

The negative performance combined with the unbearable amount of liabilities, which reached 55 million euros, made the auction process for the hotel a one-way street, which – after some unsuccessful attempts with an initial price of 48 million euros -finished in the portfolio of the American group Hines in the summer of 2017 for an amount of 33.05 million euros, marking a new era for the tourist accommodation, which today operates as Grand Hyatt Athens.

The multi-storey building with shops in Syggrou

ASTY’s portfolio, established in 1977, was not limited to the hotel as it included other properties, including the high-rise office building, located at 4 Pyrras Street in Agios Sostis in Neos Kosmos opposite the former Ledra Athens.

This property, in which ASTY still appears to have its headquarters, although it is closed and abandoned, comes under the hammer for the second time on April 6 as a first attempt was made at the end of December to find an interested bidder, without however some result.

The starting price has been set at 1.402 million euros while CEPAL Hellas is in a hurry. It is an office and shop building with a total area of ​​1,419.33 sq.m., which has been constructed on a single plot, even and buildable, with a total area of ​​383.40 sq.m., which essentially came from the merger of two neighboring plots.

The specific building consists of two basements, ground floor, five floors and a roof, while on the ground floor there are four shops, each of which has an independent entrance from Pyrras Street.

According to the assessment report, during the external autopsy carried out, it was found that “the condition of maintenance and upkeep of the building is satisfactory, taking into account the year of construction (placed in the year 1983) and the construction specifications of the building”.

Finally, it should be noted that last December he got out of the hammer and finally changed hands and another property belonging to ASTY, which is located at 6-8 Pyrras Street with the amount of the contract closing at 814,253 euros against a first offer price of 525,000 euros .

However, apart from its tourism activities, the Paraskevaidis family has a long-term presence in the construction industry in Greece, Cyprus and the Middle East as for many years it was the P in J&P AVAX, now only AVAX.