Halldis in the media

CONVENIENT FOR ITS LOCATION, HARMONIOUS FOR ITS MIX OF BUSINESS AND LEISURE, ARRESTING FOR ITS ARCHITECTURE, DESIGN DRIVEN IN ITS FURNISHINGS, VERSATILE FOR ITS CAPACITY TO HOST VARIOUS KINDS OF EVENTS, AND FUNCTIONAL FOR ITS SPECIFICATIONS.THIS IS MILAN’S BLEND TOWER, HOUSING A MODERN BUSINESS CENTRE AND TWO EVENTS ROOMS, A LOUNGE ON THE ELEVENTH FLOOR AND THE GALLERY ON THE GROUND FLOOR.

The building is noteworthy not only for its functionality and its well-considered mix of business and leisure, but also because this tower is becoming a defining element of the Milan skyline. Blend Tower, which occupies a premium location just a few metres from Central Station, was taken over in January 2010 by Halldis, a company specialising in business and residential property management in Italy and Europe.

The IDEA is that it is a control tower.But right in the middle of a city, overlooking the tracks of Central Station rather than airport runways; and where the comings and goings are not those of aircraft but of business offices – a swirl of rooms.Which don’t fly – let’s make it immediately clear – but whose situations rise and fall, switching logos and tenants, under the stewardship of Elena Cova, director of internal traffic of the 94 rooms and 11 floors of the building, totalling 350 inhabitants: the buzzing universe that occupies Blend Tower. A concentration of desks and meeting rooms for rent, stretching up towards the sky over Piazza IV November, offering technology, consulting, fashion, and communications firms spaces with a personal design touch, ready for use: "Plug & play", switch it on and away you go. Or better still, work.

As evidence of the vitality of the organic sector, several new organic restaurant businesses have been launched in a period of a just a few months between 2010 and 2011.These are very special initiatives, driven by an idea that is more innovative than the usual restaurant model.
(...) The second stage takes us to the Blend Tower business centre, an eleven-story skyscraper near Milan’s Central Station (7, Piazza 4 Novembre), owned by Halldis, whose main activity is the short-term rental of turnkey apartments and offices in Europe. It is here that the Halldis Gallery business café was opened on February 1.

→ Managers and professionals today lead hectic lives that see them spending 10-12 hours at the office or getting on and off planes or hopping from one train to another.This is why many of them seek a comfortable place to take their breakfast, have a coffee or sit down to lunch, where attention is given to the quality and preparation of food and even to environmental sustainability, and where they can carry on working, by connecting to the Internet, or have business discussions in a relaxed environment. The "Halldis Gallery" 50 metres from Central Station (Via Gasparotto 1), is now opening to satisfy these needs. This innovative, organic business café, based on the model established in other world business capitals, is an absolute first for Milan.From 12 noon to 3:00 p.m. today: public opening with aperitif and buffet.

Halldis, Italy’s prime operator in the rental of turnkey apartments for managers and tourists, with 800 apartments in 19 cities in Italy and Europe (Milan, Rome, Bologna, Florence, Genoa, Bari, Lake Como, Lake Maggiore, Trento, Turin, Venice, Verona, Catania, Paris, London, Frankfurt, Brussels, Amsterdam, and Barcelona) sets down in Naples, having decided to start operating in the capital of Campania. Naples is a key logistics crossroads, crucial because of its business concentration. It is also an increasingly popular destination not just with tourists attracted by its beauty, but also withforeign managers, by virtue of its status as a strategic business hub and as the economic capital of Southern Italy.

Halldis specialises in turnkey offices and apartments in Italy and Europe.The company is part of the Windows on Europe group, led by Leonardo Ferragamo; the Windows on Europe CEO is Pietro Martani, founder of Halldis.“Our activities are intended to complement the offer of traditional relocation structures”, explains Pietro Martani. “Halldis manages more than 800 apartments in 19 cities in Italy and Europe, fully furnished and fitted, available from three days to a year and targeted at travelling managers and professionals”.In Italy the company has offices in Milan, Rome, Bologna, Florence, Genoa, Bari, Lake Como, Lake Maggiore, Trento, Turin, Venice, Verona and Catania; in Europe it is present in Paris, London, Frankfurt, Brussels, Amsterdam, and Barcelona.Since January, it has enhanced its offer with Blend Tower, a modern business centre in Milan, 50 metres from Central Station, and designed to meet the needs of people who travel for work: 100 offices with over 300 workstations and 9 meeting rooms, where each space can be rented for as short time as an hour or an afternoon.

An odd couple, a tower of grey shades to be complemented by a more horizontal building of intense blue. Recently in Milan, Blend Tower was inaugurated. Blend Tower is a business center by 5 1AA designed for Generali Properties, a profound renovation located along the Piazza IV Novembre in Milan where the Genoese architects had already finished the redevelopment of the nearby property, the Blend Building, for the same operator.
At first it was a unique intervention that was going to completely renovate two buildings not far from Milan's Central Station. Then Generali Properties has decided to differentiate the two structures to allow tenants to distinguish themselves: the result is a building (opened in 2009) that stands in the context of Milan's Central Station, characterized by its blue facade. Then, in recent days, Halldis, an Italian company that operates in renting serviced apartments and offices in Italy and Europe, tenant of the apartment, opened the Blend Tower that instead stands out for its shades of grey.

A skyscraper in Milan city center, adjacent to Central Station, which provides managers, enterprises and entrepreneurs temporary offices ready for one hour, one day, a month, or even a year or more. The initiative was signed by Halldis, the Italian leading company in serviced apartment rentals in Italy and Europe, and Generali Immobiliare Italia SGR, which manages the real estate fund Scarlatti, who is owner of the building. The architectural design is by 5 +1 AA Genoa.

The architectural project is by the Genoa-based 5+1 AA (architects Alfonso Femia and Gianluca Peluffo); the interior design by Studio DC10 (arch. Marco Vigo); the initiative is by Generali Immobiliare Italia SGR running the real estate investment trust Scarlatti – owner of the building – and Halldis, a leader in the lease of turnkey offices and flats in Italy and Europe, a company of the group Windows on Europe, established in 2007 by Leonardo Ferragamo and Pietro Martani and working in the accommodation-property industry.

11 floors, 100 offices for a total of 300 workplaces and 11 meeting rooms, for a total of 170 seats. with variable lay-out, all fully furnished and cabled, equipped with air conditioning, advanced telephone services, high-speed Internet connection, access 24 hours through for 365 days a year with digital card, daily cleaning, video-surveillance, safety system, multilingual reception, restaurant, terrace, lounge; in addition, numberless virtual offices with a post address, mailbox and dedicated telephone number.

Three hundred workstations, furnished and wired offices, ten meeting rooms and three training rooms, cleaning service, video surveillance, multi-lingual concierge, designer restaurant, two terraces and rooftop lounge. These are the features of Blend Tower, the new hi-tech skyscraper in the center of Milan within walking distance from Central Station.
(...) The initiative is managed by Halldis, a subsidiary of Windows on Europe, the company that administers the estate of Leonardo Ferragamo.

With friends or family, to enjoy a weekend more as a resident than as a tourist, you need a luxury apartment with all the amenities you can imagine, from babysitting to the concierge, from laundry service to the booking of restaurants and theaters, from transfers to agreements with exclusive fitness centers. Even for the festive season, to experience the capital in full freedom enjoying shopping, lights, exhibitions and concerts, Halldis offers a choice of over 100 apartments located in more central areas, from Notting Hill to the City, from Kensington to Chelsea.

To open an office in just one day and maybe only for an hour a week or a month?
From next January it will be possible in the renovated Blend Tower: a skyscraper in downtown Milan, which offers temporary rentals to big and small business owners. (...) The initiative is by Halldis and Generali Immobiliare Italia SGR, that manages the real estate fund Scarlatti, owner of the building.

(...) To make property produce income in times of crisis, however, "the key words are flexibility, creativity and service," says Pietro Martani, managing director of Windows on Europe, the real estate holding company that has 700 serviced apartments in major Italian cities and Europe and 70 prestigious villas in Tuscany and in the most spectacular areas in Italy. "They are unusual words in the real estate market, but well rooted in the organization I represent. Residential properties for temporary use with an easier check-in and check-out process, office buildings ready to go with every service, and easy to enjoy.

The latest assault to hoteliers comes from a niche sector but quite strong from the economical point view: the competition concerns the business of managers. Since nowadays businessmen prefer to stay in an apartment, obviously with every comfort. To accommodate the new trend a new company arrives in Genoa: Halldis, the first national operator in the apartment rental market dedicated to managers and tourists, with a portfolio of seven hundred serviced apartments in major Italian cities and in Europe (Milan, Florence, Como, Bologna, Rome, Turin, Verona, Trento, Venice, Catania, Paris, Brussels, Frankfurt), which - on the occasion of the inauguration of the headquarters in Genoa, has signed a partnership with Leonardo Ferragamo.

Book a hotel room to complete a "mission" out of town on your company behalf? Archaeology in the life of the business-man. Now, in Turin, you can find a new possibility: serviced apartments. This is the new trend in a particular field of tourism like that of traveling and staying away on business.
(...) That's why a business operator like Halldis, in alliance with Leonardo Ferragamo, has decided to strengthen its presence in Turin, a city that is becoming an important destination for Italian and foreign businessmen as a strategic center for business.

▬ The phenomenon of holiday homes is gaining ground not only in the resorts but also in the cities, where the owners find it convenient to rent their homes for short periods when they are away for business or travel.
(...)
Among the operators that have focused on city rentals there is Halldis, a company that is working as a "property manager” of vacation houses, taking charge, namely, of their maintenance.

This is far from the usual hotel. To spend a short relaxing and quality holiday in Paris you can choose one of the luxury apartments that the Italian group Halldis proposes in the most central districts of the city, in period or designer buildings and enhanced with advanced hi-tech equipment.

BARI - Halldis, the first national operator of apartment rentals ready for managers and entrepreneurs, arrives in Puglia. The company, which is part of the real estate group of Leonardo Ferragamo, has chosen Bari as a destination for the vocation of the city to accommodate many Italian businessmen and foreigners.

Luxury apartments for executives and tourists by the Two Towers. There is also the great stylist Leonardo Ferragamo in Halldis, the first national operator in apartment rentals ready for managers and tourists, who for weeks has strengthened its presence by the Two Towers, opening an office in Via del Carro.

(...) The demand for apartments in central areas of the city, and that of properties of merit, also in touristic environments, however, knows no setbacks. A confirmation of that is the partnership recently signed between Windows on Europe, a property-holding company that controls both receptive activities that are part of Halldis (leading company in Italy and Europe in renting apartments for business people and tourists, founded by Pietro Martani) and the real estate activity of Leonardo Ferragamo, and the group Sist from the family Sist, active for decades in the real estate sector on Lake Maggiore.

(...) Focused only on real estate is Windows on Europe, a real estate holding company that combines the activities of Halldis, a company headed by Pietro Martani who with Leonardo Ferragamo - who has awarded the company his real estate properties - holds 60% of the capital. "Our historical position - explains Pietro Martani to Halldis - is the management and the rental of apartments and villas in various Italian cities and abroad. This activity produced the recent desire to provide the market with properties managed or manageable by us, generating an income. For example, in central Paris we manage about 60 apartments, whose owners are almost all Italians." Halldis believes that the stagnation of the market could create opportunities.

Much of the real estate market may be showing signs of crisis but demand of top-quality property is booming on a global scale with more and more buyers willing to purchase properties regardless of their geographical location throughout the world. But what can be defined as a luxury property? According to Luxury Fine Homes Properties Portfolio, an exclusive affiliate of Leading Real Estate Companies of the World, luxury properties are those valued at upwards of 1.5 million Euros.

Windows on Europe has just been founded, and it’s already a great success. Today this holding company, chaired by Leonardo Ferragamo, with its revenue of 8 million Euros, is the landmark for manager and companies looking for the best housing solutions.

It all began more than 20 years ago, the brainchild of Leonardo Ferragamo, the Florentine manager who transformed the love and passion for his land into a business opportunity. It was 1986 when Windows on Tuscany, the company dedicated to the management and rental of private luxury residences for holiday stays in Tuscany, was founded.

Twenty-five apartments, each one different and unique, furnished with the best designer brands, fitted with Internet access and house automation and the possibility to ask for a chef or waiters for business dinners: that’s the residence in via Biondelli, in Milan, recently inaugurated by Windows on Europe (with an exhibit of the Italian-Belgian artist Edelweiss Van Hoecke’s works).

The life of managers away for business is not that easy: congresses 12 hours a day, business lunches, dinners and happy hours… the time to organize free time and leisure moments is very little. In Milan, business capital of Italy, someone has decided to pamper these “forced travelers”.
A residence thought for managers has been recently opened in via Biondelli 7, only a few steps from Bocconi University.
An accommodation where everything is ready, managed by Halldis Real Estate, where clients’ needs and whishes are granted at any moment of the day, just like in a 5 stars hotel.

Featureless hotel rooms, goodbye! More and more companies prefer to rent luxury apartments for their managers, conceived for long business stays.

(...)Among the main companies offering this kind of solution, there is Halldis Italia (www.halldis.com), a tech real estate company founded in 2002 and owned by Windows on Europe (which already groups together all the Ferragamo real estate activities). With an estimated earning of 6,5 million euros for the year 2007, Halldis offers 550 apartments and offices for rent in the main Italian cities (Milan, Rome, Florence, Bologna, Venice, Catania) and in Europe (Paris, Brussels, Frankfurt and soon London and Amsterdam).

A new holding company integrates the real estate activities of Leonardo Ferragamo and those of the company Halldis, European leader in serviced apartments for managers and tourists. The new holding company will be able to offer 600 serviced apartments in European downtown locations as well as 70 luxury properties in Tuscany and other popular tourism areas in Italy. Ferragamo holds 30 per cent of the shares of this new holding company, Windows on Europe (equity of 1 million euros), and acts as its President. The Managing Director Pietro Martani holds around 31 per cent of the shares, while the other shareholders are Stefano Ghetti (21 per cent), Giancarlo Canavesio (13 per cent) and Cristiano Esclapon (5 per cent).

The opportunity to find, rapidly and with the maximum flexibility, a self-catered, high-tech, ready to use furnished apartment is one of the most common needs of those living for short or long terms off-site, in Italy or in the main European cities. Hotels are mostly a Hobson’s choice, but it is not, as you may think, the best solution in terms of money and practicality.
In the USA, Tech Real Estates companies have been the only ones trying to give the growing request of corporate apartments an answer. They operate with an innovative property management system through which clients (managers, free lancers and also tourists) can rent self catering apartments, and companies can find temporary offices. The first European company of this kind is called Halldis, and offers apartments for rent for short term stays, available from a minimum of 3 days to over 1 year.

Halldis expands in Italy and in Europe

Short or long term rentals (from 4 days up) on a turnkey basis for managers and tourists.
The formula is offered by Halldis, which, in spite of its name, is an Italian operator specialized in temporary rentals, now operating in Milan, Turin, Bologna, Florence, Venice and in Europe in Paris, Frankfurt and Brussels, with about 500 self catering apartments. Halldis, founded in 2002 by Pietro Martani, aims to become the biggest European operator in this sector, with the intention of developing new destinations both in Italy and abroad.

Businessmen working for multinational companies who find themselves working in different cities for short or long periods now have an alternative to traditional hotel or residence accommodations. This new service is offered by Halldis, a company based in Milan dealing with the “outsourcing of corporate apartments”, explains Pietro Martani, born in 1973, founder and president of the company: “We manage a portfolio of apartments located in central areas of the most important Italian and European cities, offering a home to top managers who travel to the different branches of their companies”.

Pay per view TV already exists, so why not also offer offices to be paid for only for their actual use, without bureaucratic paperwork and available even for just one hour? It works like this: you call the call center, ask for an office for as long as you desire and as big as you like, with the ease of having it at your disposal in just one day. Telephone switchboard, vocal service, computers and Internet all included in the price.

Halldis, a company that has been providing house rentals for 4 years now, with this new strategy has decided to expand towards the commercial sector.