The official justification was the need to find an alternative space during the planned works at the Real Casa de Correos. With that argument, the regional government acquired, through the public company Planifica Madrid, a penthouse in Chamberí for 6.3 million euros and of unusual dimensions for institutional use: almost 500 square meters of housing and another 200 of terrace. Isabel Díaz Ayuso assured that the property would be used for meetings while the Puerta del Sol headquarters was under renovation. However, nothing was known about those supposed works and the regional government had not announced them. This Friday, the contract for those works was published, specifically for the project design, which was awarded without a tender and for almost 60,000 euros to the studio of Alejandra Pombo, cousin of the well-known Madrid influencer María Pombo.
What is awarded in these specifications is the design and drafting of the project, assistance for licenses, and supervision of the works, not their execution, which according to the Community of Madrid will cost around 1.65 million euros.
The works will affect the interior courtyards of the ground floor and the north wing of the second floor, the floor where Ayuso works. In total, they will affect an area of 710 square meters on the ground floor and 1,136 square meters on the second floor. The planned timeframe to carry them out is 19 months, three to draft the project, four for licenses and awarding of works, and 12 to execute them. The interior designer Alejandra Pombo is also behind the transformation of the gastronomic spaces of the Palacio de Cibeles. Her studio signed the renovation and interior design project of Cornamusa, the restaurant located on the sixth floor, as well as Azotea Cibeles and Café Cibeles.
The Community of Madrid justifies the direct hiring of Alejandra Pombo to design the interior renovation of the Real Casa de Correos by considering that it is not a mere interior design project, but a “unique artistic intervention.” The report states that the building, declared a Cultural Interest Asset and with areas containing artworks, historical portraits, and high-value pieces, requires a delicate intervention that combines restoration, modernization, and institutional image. Therefore, they argue, the Ministry of the Presidency resorts to this procedure without a tender.
The last major contract for the remodeling of the regional headquarters is the facade repairs, which took place in 2025 and in which 963,197.17 euros were invested, taxes included. The works included the repair of the interior roof slope and its reinforcement, as well as reviewing the decorative elements of the facade itself. At that time, the regional entity assured that it was repairing the building “on the occasion of the 40th anniversary as the regional government headquarters.”
The Más Madrid deputy Alicia Torija, member of the Presidency and Local Administration Commission of the Madrid Assembly, considers that the documentation made public this Friday “seriously calls into question” the version offered by the regional government to justify the purchase of the Chamberí penthouse. The deputy argues that if on April 14 there was a rehabilitation project for the Real Casa de Correos that made it necessary to acquire the property as a provisional headquarters, Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s government “must show it.” Otherwise, she states, “a huge charade” would have been constructed to try to justify a 6.3 million euro operation that, in her opinion, “everything still points” was intended to serve as a residence, “official or unofficial,” of the president.
Torija also questions that the planned intervention in the Real Casa de Correos, declared a Cultural Interest Asset (BIC), is proposed to “modernize” the “institutional image” or adapt it to a certain “aesthetic.” “You cannot confuse rehabilitating heritage with redecorating institutional spaces,” she argues, before demanding that any intervention on a protected building be governed by “technical criteria, transparency, and guaranteed procedures.”
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