The company Utopicus, specialized in flexible workspaces, will open its sixth office coworking in the center of Barcelona, on the second floor of the corporate building of the real estate company Colonial in the city, a group to which it has belonged since 2017. The opening is the thirteenth for the coworking firm in Spain.
It is a very central location, on Avenida Diagonal, between Tuset and Aribau streets, where Utopicus has 1,300 square meters of usable space and 400 square meters of terrace for exclusive use. The building, which has undergone a comprehensive renovation, has 12,877 square meters spread over nine floors and had previously housed CaixaBank offices.
For the new Barcelona project, which will open next March, Utopicus moves away from the flexible work model of shared desks (hot desk) to prioritize private offices, with a combined capacity of 117 workstations, offering high quality standards, as advertised by the firm in the marketing of the new space. The interior design has been entrusted to architects Ellen Rapelius and Mónica Torner, who have taken into account the characteristics of the city area where the facilities are located, Utopicus highlights.
The facilities have also been adapted to the technological needs demanded by future tenants and the challenge of sustainability has been addressed, with a lighting management system that self-regulates through sensors to personalize it based on space usage; highly efficient equipment that, through the BMS (Building Management System) for real-time consumption measurement and consultation, allows saving energy and having cleaner air; and sensor-equipped faucets have been installed to help save water and reduce waste by 40%.
The new space is the company's sixth in Barcelona, after the opening of flexible offices in Plaza Catalunya, Clementina street, Plaza Gal·la Placídia, Plaza de las Glòries and Torre Marenostrum ---the former headquarters of Naturgy in Barceloneta---. In Madrid, the company has seven spaces (Ourense, Gran Vía, José Abascal, Príncipe de Vergara, la Castellana, Paseo de La Habana and Francisco Silvela). Between both capitals, Utopicus manages 40,000 square meters, with strong growth in the last two years with the incorporation of four new buildings in Barcelona and Madrid ---Torre Marenostrum, Castellana, Francisco Silvela and Paseo de La Habana---.
The Colonial group acquired the Madrid coworking company Utopicus at the end of 2017, with a majority stake, from its founder Rafa de Ramón. Utopicus was created in 2010. De Ramón was CEO until April 2021, when he was replaced by Albert Alcober, formerly Colonial's business director.
Regarding the latest operation in Barcelona, Albert Alcober stated that "Utopicus Diagonal was born to respond to new ways of working and new ways of relating in the office. The perfect option for companies to use it as a meeting point to foster connection between their professionals in a situation like the current one, in which most are delocalized."