A 22 @ in Madrid: Reality in the coming years?

This article was written and published in Spanish and has been translated into English via Google Translate. Click here to read the original article.

The Madbit project claims to specify the appearance of a technological district in the Spanish capital that groups the large companies of the sector in a single location.

Amsterdam, Hamburg, Dublin, Manchester, Barcelona... some of the main European capitals have created technology districts that serve as a meeting point for companies dedicated to new technologies. Madrid, so far, has not been able to create it. Why? From lack of political support to a too heterogeneous distribution of the office market. But this seems to change: Manoteras, Castellana Norte or, especially, Julián Camarillo, renamed Madbit, want to pick up the glove.

The national director of offices of Savills Aguirre Newman, Ángel Estebaranz explains, that one of the reasons why a technological district similar to 22 @ Barcelona has not been created is that in Madrid “there is no urban area like the old Poble Nou de Barcelona where such a high volume of buildable can be concentrated for tertiary office use”.

The great candidate, “perhaps the best option,” explains Estebaranz, to create this technological hub in Madrid is the Julián Camarillo area, located northeast of the city and which has had a great advantage for years: a fiber installation optics with a capacity far superior to normal.

In fact, the partner responsible for real estate of Meridia and president of the Madbit association, Juan Barba, points out that in the area there are already technology companies “such as Indra or Telefónica, but not in an organized way”.

The Julián Camarillo area, “besides being the only formal proposal at this time, has a favorable urban planning regulation,” explains JLL Office Manager José Miguel Setién. Thus, Setién is convinced that this area of the city can “generate between 500,000 square meters and 600,000 square meters of offices”.

Regardless, Barba stresses that "we like the mix" between the technology district and the neighborhood, "the idea of back to the city." For this, he asks for "a change of image" of the neighborhood and a "reinforcement of cultural activities." Setién, meanwhile, argues that "it is necessary" that the creation of office buildings "be accompanied by the creation of housing."

In this sense, Barba recalls that the main need of the area is "to improve mobility and order the area", especially as regards the creation of parking lots. Thus, it proposes solutions such as the union of the neighborhood with the surroundings of the Wanda Metropolitano with a shuttle bus line that allows to take advantage of its parking capacity every day of the week.

Tuning with the new municipal government

One of the reasons that explain the great success of 22 @ in Barcelona is to have been a public-private initiative, with a city council involved in the project. In this sense, Barba explains that before the elections they offered all the candidates “to take a tour of the area”, who finally performed “Citizens and the PP”.

Both parties "understand that things have been done well in Barcelona," said the president of the association, so the new town hall led by the popular José Luís Martínez-Almeida is expected to commit to this project. Barba warns: "This is like a seed, the benefits of planting it will be seen over the years" and predicts that it will take "at least ten years" to achieve the objectives that have been proposed.

To achieve this, Setién claims “not only public money he has never had”, but also “an ad hoc regulation” that allows Julián Camarillo to be placed among the great technological districts of Europe. To achieve this, it is necessary to “do something similar to what the Barcelona City Council did in 1999 with the 22 @”, highlights Barba.

This article was written and published in Spanish and has been translated into English via Google Translate. Click here to read the original article.

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