THE Avenida Jaime III in Palma is the 12th most expensive street in Spain, based on a comparison of rents for shop space.
The elegant street which links the Paseo Mallorca and the Borne is a favourite with the Spanish Royal Family, who can often be seen shopping there when holidaying at Marivent Palace. The distinction of being the most expensive shopping centre of Spain goes to Calle Preciados in Madrid, where the average rent is 2'304 euros per square metre per year. The Paseo de Gracia in Barcelona is the centre where rents have gone up most in the space of a year, by 22 per cent.
The figures were revealed in the survey Main Streets Across the World 2005 by the consultants Cushman & Wakefield Healey & Baker, which compares rents in 236 shopping centres in 47 countries. After Calle Preciados, where rents have gone up by just under four per cent over the past year, comes Calle Portal de l'Angel in Barcelona, with an average rent of 2'124 euros per square metre a year, followed by Calle Serrano in Madrid (1'992 euros) and Paseo de Gracia (1'800 euros). Other streets in Spain more expensive than the Jaime III are to be found in Valencia, Bilbao, Seville, Malaga and Zaragoza.
But the prices in Spain are by no means the most expensive in the world, and Preciados is only 13th in the world list which is topped, once again, by New York's Fifth Avenue, where the average rent is 11'558 euros per square metre a year. Second is Causeway Bay in Hong Kong (9'625 euros), which has overtaken the Champs Elysees in Paris (6'628 euros).
Jaime III has 12th highest shop rents in Spain