ALICANTE. The arrival of the British flexible spaces giant Regus to Alicante is closer by the minute. As published by Alicante Plaza back in February, IWG’s business centers brand has booked an agreement with Business World Alicante (BWA) to assume operations of the former Casa del Mar in the port of Alicante, converted by Javier Reina’s firm into a successful business center in the past three years. The arrival of the pandemic has pushed back the world leader in flexible work’s plans, but it hasn’t stopped them.
Thus, IWG and BWA have already chosen the company in charge of reconditioning works in the port business center in order to modernize it and adapt it to Regus’ standards, as confirmed by Reina to this newspaper during an interview aimed at exploring the flexible offices industry’s challenges after Covid-19, that will be published as a whole this Sunday. The company in charge of works is FLULLE, from Madrid, who has already worked with their British counterpart in multiple occasions, and is precisely specialized in construction of flexible offices.
“The port managing body approved the partial transfer of the building”, remembers Reina, who maintains operation of the two restaurants, “conditional to the building’s transformation to improve the premises. It’s an important investment, as the transfer agreement contemplated a budget of no less than 1.5 million Euros”, which will be absorbed by both parts. Now, once the construction company has been chosen through an internal tender”, BWA and Regus have already presented the project to the Port Authority, and they are pending technical approval to commence works.
The intent of both companies, as explained by Business World Alicante’s CEO, to be able to seize the opportunity to begin refurbishments during the month of August, since activity in the building will be lower, and they are aiming for the job to be done by October or November, at which point Regus will take control of the building.
3.000 square meters for flexible work
Regus (IWG’s brand for business centers) had been looking for a location in Alicante for more than a year, and they finally reached an agreement with Reina for a partial transfer of the building space. BWA holds a concession for the next 27 years (agreed upon in 2016), meaning that they will continue being port concessionaires and Regus will become, through this agreement, the operator of the whole building, except for the two restaurant areas.
The British flexible spaces behemoth, holding an 11% global market share, usually looks for buildings starting at 4.000m2 (43.000ft2) in order to adapt them to its model. BWA is slightly smaller, but their new operator trusts in its ability to properly exploit the branch with the aforementioned refurbishment. The first Regus space in Alicante (the brand is present in Madrid, Barcelona, Sevilla, Valencia and Málaga) is located on a favored enclave next to the port, and it offers all the benefits of flexible work through more than 3.000m2 (32.000ft2) distributed across 6 floors.
Philippe Jiménez, Country Manager for Regus in Spain, stressed last February that “Alicante is a strategic city and with great economic potential in which Regus wishes to have a presence to provide an answer to all the needs that workers might have in order to boost their productivity, while at the same time developing relations among professionals”. Javier Reina, on his part, emphasized that “Alicante is a benchmark for tourism and with this solution we’ll be able to seduce all sorts of national and international companies that come settle in our city, not only stationarily, but as a business travel destination in order to attract companies and their employees to settle here in Alicante, a city with fantastic living standards”.
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