Catalinas Norte

Catalinas Norte is an important business complex composed of nineteen commercial office buildings, in two sections, and occupied by numerous leading Argentine companies, foreign subsidiaries, diplomatic offices, and a hotel. It is located in the Retiro and San Nicolás wards of the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Francisco Seeber, a German Argentine businessman and legislator, created The Catalinas Warehouses and Pier Company, Ltd. in 1872 for the purpose of building a pier (near Paraguay Street), a wharf, and an office building. The acquired lands were east of the Paseo de Julio (now Leandro Alem Avenue).

The area was known as the "Catalinas Incline," and was so named for the Church of Santa Catalina of Sienna (still standing on the corner of Viamonte and San Martín streets). This church also served as the namesake for Seeber's new firm. With the purchase of more land in the quarter of La Boca, the Retiro lot was named Catalinas Norte (North Catalinas), and the La Boca lot, Catalinas Sur.

The firm obtained a municipal contract for the construction of the Catalina Docks. Needing a large and steady supply of soil to level and grade the hitherto flood-prone site for the wharf, Seeber bought land in the then-desolate northwest end of the city with the intent of hauling soil to Catalinas for land reclamation. Enlisting workers mostly from Entre Ríos Province, these latter established a neighborhood (Villa Urquiza) there in 1887.

These docks became the northern and southern points of entry into Puerto Madero upon its inaugural in 1897. Catalinas Norte was later chosen as the site for the Hotel de Inmigrantes, a facility built to temporarily house the over 100,000 annual immigrant arrivals, and completed in 1911. Following the construction of the modern Port of Buenos Aires from 1911 to 1925, both Catalinas docks fell into disuse, and October 31, 1945, the Catalinas Warehouses properties were sold to Yatahí, S.A. A lot facing Córdoba Avenue was, in turn, resold in 1949 to a State enterprise created during the administration of Juan Perón: Atlas, S.A. This entity built the Alas Building, and an adjacent lot was used to build the Peronist ALEA publishing house (redeveloped as Microsoft's South American headquarters in 2000).

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