205
205

Colonial To Build 24,500 m2 Office Skyscraper In 22@

16 February 2017 – La Vanguardia

Colonial has started construction of the largest turnkey office building in the Catalan capital in recent years in the 22@ district of Barcelona. The office will have a surface area of 24,500 m2, distributed over 17 completely open-plan floors – there will not be any pillars – measuring around 1,800 m2 each. The real estate company will invest €77 million in the project and construction is expected to be completed by the middle of 2018.

At a press conference on Monday, Colonial’s Director of Business, Alberto Alcober, explained that this building will seek to offer the highest qualities in terms of spatial and environmental design – it will become the first office building in the city of Barcelona to receive the LEED Platinum certificate – whereby allowing it to differentiate itself from the existing supply of office buildings in the city.

The property is located on Calle Ciutat de Granada, 150, next to Plaza de Glòries; it will have a 100m long façade covered with ceramic tubes in green and natural tones, and the façade that overlooks the interior of the block will be covered with vegetation to help it blend in with a municipal park that is due to be built there.

The property, whose design is being led by the studio Batlle i Roig Arquitectura, will also have garden terraces. It is being marketed exclusively by Cushman & Wakefield, which has already secured a pre-lease contract with the Norwegian group Schibsted to occupy 10,200 m2 – 9,400 m2 of office space and 800 m2 of terrace – spread over six floors, to house between 700 and 800 employees.

Schibsted will hereby bring together the workforce that currently occupies three buildings in the Barcelona area – two in the capital and one in Sant Cugat de Vallès – and increasing its surface area by 30%. To this end, it has signed the largest pre-lease agreement in the city in the last 10 years for a building under construction. (…).

Besides Schibsted, which owns websites such as Infojobs, Vibbo, Fotocasa, Habitaclia, Milanuncios and Coches.net, the future office building is receiving lots of interest from other potential tenants, according to its promoters.

This project forms part of the investment plan announced by Colonial in 2016. The real estate group acquired it from the fund Benson Elliot for €45 million and will spend €32 million on the construction work.

Original story: La Vanguardia

Translation: Carmel Drake