SCA Signs Lease with Hines for 73 KSF of Office Space in Paris

By Adriana Pop, Associate Editor

International manufacturer SCA  signed a nine-year lease with Hines European Core Fund (HECF) to occupy 73,000 square feet across three floors at the Eurosquare building in the Saint-Ouen business district in Paris.

Real estate firm JLL carried out the transaction, while law firm Lacourte Balas Raquin represented HECF.

Founded in 2007, HECF is a Luxembourg-based, euro-denominated investment fund managed by the Hines group. Its purpose is to build a large portfolio of tertiary-use buildings across Europe. The fund currently manages nine buildings in France, Germany and the U.K.

SCA, a European leader in the hygiene products sector, will relocate 300 employees to the new offices at Eurosquare.

“We wanted to give SCA staff high-quality, functional, warm and friendly work spaces,” Eric Plu, HR director of SCA France, said in a news release. “Staff wellbeing was one of the key criteria that determined our choices”.

Offering a total of 161,000 square feet, Eurosquare is ideally located on Boulevard Victor Hugo, on the northern part of the city’s ring road. Hines acquired the property from Tishman Speyer in 2007. The Saint-Ouen business district is also home to other large operations, including those of L’Oréal, Danone, Nokia, Sony, and BNP Parisbas.

In order to accommodate SCA’s relocation, HECF has added a state-of-the-art 2,700-square-foot fitness area. Designed by Jean-Michel Wilmotte, the facility is now accessible to all the building’s occupants.

According to Xavier Musseau, managing director- investment management for HECF, approximately 88,000 square feet of office space at Eurosquare are still available for lease to one or several companies.

Yxime is the manager of the building, while Corporate Gym is operates the fitness center.

Founded in 1929, SCA is a European leader in the hygiene products sector. The company develops and manufactures personal care, tissue and forest products which it sells in about 100 countries via well-known global brands such as TENA and Tork and strong regional brands including Lotus, Libresse, Tempo and Libero.

At the end of 2013, SCA had a payroll of more than 34,000 employees and a turnover of 10.3 billion euros. The company is based in Stockholm, Sweden, and has about 2,750 employees in France working in seven locations.