by Luso-Venezuelan Victor Tavares, who owns Motels Bora-Bora and Fonte dos Amores from Coimbra, as well as the four-star Hotel As Américas, acquired the real estate left over from the former Metalurgia Casal premises in Aveiro.
At the beginning of August 2021, just a few weeks before he turned 99, João Casal, the founder of the largest and most iconic Portuguese motorcycle industry – Casal, died.
Metalurgia Casal, in Aveiro, employed over a thousand people and produced approximately 90,000 engines and 20,000 motorcycles annually.
And a famous moment in 1981 went down in history, when the pilot Jan Huberts broke the world speed record on a motorcycle with a Casal 50cc engine, with the mark of 224 km/h.
Metalurgia Casal, which was founded in 1965, enjoyed many years of glory, but ended up going bankrupt in 2000.
This Wednesday, February 15, almost a quarter of a century after the factory closed, it is announced that a hotel group from Aveiro has bought the property that was left of the old Casal premises.
In the house there is a property with an area of 4,800 square meters, where an industrial warehouse with an implantation of 1,400 square meters has been inserted, which incorporated the facade and offices of the former Metalurgia Casal.
All of these were “acquired by Luso-Venezuelan businessman Victor Tavares, son of a couple of Portuguese immigrants to Venezuela,” Medium, the Famalicão real estate agency that brokered the transaction, revealed in a statement, without giving details of the business’s value.
Previously acquired at public auction by another company, following the bankruptcy of Metalurgia Casal, the property now purchased by Victor Tavares’ group will be “reclaimed and placed on the commercial lease market,” Medium guarantees.
Owner of Bora-Bora and Fonte dos Amores opens motel in Cascais
Between the acquisition of the property and the restoration work of the industrial building, which should be completed next July, “a total investment estimated at 700,000 euros is at stake,” adds the same real estate agent.
Located next to the Aveiro Center shopping mall, which today occupies most of the land that belonged to the old motorcycle factory, the front of the property that Tavares bought still bears a huge Metalurgia Casal logo, which the site’s new owner claims that “I would like to preserve, out of respect for the memory and culture of Aveiro”. But this “will depend on the business that will be established there”, he points out.
Apart from investing in rental properties, Vitor Tavares’ main activity is the hotel business, owning Hotel As Américas, a four-star unit located in Aveiro, Motel Bora-Bora, in Santo Tirso, and Motel Fonte dos Amores , in Coimbra,
Meanwhile, Victor Tavares takes advantage of the announcement of the acquisition of what is left of the former Casais premises to reveal that he is “investing in a third motel, this time in Cascais”.
(The news was updated at 17:12)
