Spanish partners withdraw from one of the most glamorous five-star hotels in the city

On the most Parisian of Buenos Aires streets, the glamorous Arroyo and in what was once the Bencich Palace, lies Casa Lucía, the hotel that reopened a year ago, after having been closed since 2019, years when the French brand Sofitel retreated.

The news is that the company that promoted the launch and operation, the Spanish firm Unico Hotel, decided to withdraw from the operation.

“Único Hotels has concluded its term as the head of management of the Casa Lucia hotel, formerly the Sofitel on Arroyo Street in Buenos Aires. After having played a key role in its renovation and opening, contributing its experience and vision, the company, responsible for the launch of the hotel and consolidating its proposal in these initial months, has reached an agreement with its Argentine partners to withdraw from both management and shareholding,” it said in a statement.

According to Spanish sources, the operation is now in the hands of Diego Mazer and Marcelo Wodolarsky, who make up the Hotel Arroyo company. “The exit from Unico has been financially harmless, with no losses or profits in the year since it opened,” they added. The investment in the remodelling and reopening of the hotel was around US$6 million.

For Unico, this architectural gem represented the possibility of expanding outside of Spain. The firm was founded in 2005 by Pau Guardans, a Barcelona-based hotelier who grew a collection of exclusive hotels with properties such as Mas de Torrent on the Costa Brava, The Principal and Hotel Único in Madrid, Finca Serena and The Lodge in Mallorca. Its latest acquisition is Finca La Bobadilla in Andalusia.

They say that Guardans always wanted to settle in Buenos Aires. His grandfather went into exile in this city during the civil war and his parents got married here.

But things in Argentina did not go well, as they admitted to Clarín. Curious. Those close to the Spanish businessman assure that the decrease in foreign tourists did not have an impact "because the public at that level of hotels does not pay so much attention to the rate."

The reasons given by Madrid are based on disagreements with local partners. They expressed it this way: “Over these months, the development of the relationship with these local partners has not evolved according to initial expectations, which has led the parties to opt for a consensual solution. However, Único Hotels maintains its positive opinion on the potential of tourism in Argentina and will evaluate future opportunities in the country, convinced of its growth within the luxury sector. Everything acquired in this process has been enriching and has allowed the company to put its stamp on the opening of one of the most outstanding hotels in Buenos Aires.”

The Bencich Palace is one of the architectural jewels of the city. It had been built by the shipping entrepreneur Nicolás Mihanovich in 1925, but he did not live to see it because he died before. Thus it remained in the hands of the builders, the Bencich brothers.

For several decades it was a residential tower, until the late 1990s when the French group Accor, owner of the Sofitel brand, reached an agreement with the Bencich family to recycle it into a luxury hotel. It lasted until 2017. Then the pandemic came and in 2024 it opened as Casa Lucía with Spanish operators.

Now its fate depends on Mazer, head of the developer Grupo DMaz, which built the Chateau Libertador and Chateau Puerto Madero buildings, and on Wolodarsky, also the operator of the Four Seasons hotel, which belongs to the company Albwardy Investment, the holding company of the multimillionaire Ali Saeed Juma Albwardy of Dubai.