Avila Work City: the first Portuguese coworking space integrated in a shopping centre – Atrium Saldanha – has already opened

Avila Spaces will revolutionize the market of shared workspaces with the opening of a new concept in Lisbon. Avila Work City is the first coworking project in a shopping centre, which also aims to boost the ecosystem of companies and shops at the Atrium Saldanha.

Lisbon, 7^th February 2022 – Avila Spaces officially opened a new concept of workspaces in Lisbon, at the Atrium Saldanha shopping centre. For the first time in Portugal, a real “miniature city” is created – the Avila Work City. Here, coworkers can have access to an integrated set of services in a single space: technology shops, stationery shops, bookstores, clothing shops and restaurants.

In soft opening since the beginning of 2022, Avila Work City is already a success: it has an 80% coworking occupancy rate and was nominated for the South Europe Startup Awards and for the 2022 National Real Estate Award. In the coming months a set of initiatives is planned to boost the ecosystem of companies and shops in the building: conferences, networking events, mini-concerts, exhibitions, among others.

The Avila Work City provides companies with the ideal complement to hybrid working models: it is possible to rent meeting rooms by the day (from 13 euros/hour), to bring together geographically dispersed teams or subscribe to memberships for employees or freelancers (from 200 euros/month) to use the coworking space to escape home office isolation.

Avila Work City is on the second floor of the Atrium Saldanha, in an open space of 640 square metres overlooking the Duque de Saldanha square and Avenida Fontes Pereira de Melo. Here, the winning concept of Avila Spaces is recreated, with a lounge area, individual and collaborative work zones, meeting rooms, booths for phone calls, pantry and a brand new feature: a presentation zone, with an amphitheatre, prepared for corporate events or product launches. One of the highlights is the Work City room, a glass “aquarium”, completely soundproofed, hanging above the commercial area of the Atrium Saldanha.

“The Avila is the most awarded workspace in Portugal and is now inaugurating a groundbreaking and innovative concept in Portugal that will mark a new era and raise the bar in the market,” guarantees Carlos Gonçalves, CEO of Avila Spaces. “We believe that the Work City concept will bring a new dynamic to the building and the feedback from customers has been fantastic and has exceeded all expectations. Surprisingly, we have had a great demand from both large and small companies, who are integrating cowork into their hybrid working models. With the pandemic, coworking is no longer exclusive to start-ups and freelancers”, reveals Carlos Gonçalves.

Eugénia Martins, commercial director of the Atrium Saldanha, recalls the added value of Avila Work City for the shopping centre: “This project comes to give a new dynamic to Atrium Saldanha, proving that we were able to reinvent ourselves with the pandemic. With this new flexible workspace offer, we reinforce our premium and innovative positioning in the shopping centre and office market in Portugal”.

The inauguration event of Avila Work City was attended by Armando Martins, chairman of the board of directors of Imosal SA (partner of Avila Spaces in the project) and representatives of various entities linked to the sector of entrepreneurship and culture of the city of Lisbon, with emphasis on Diogo Moura, Councillor for Culture, Education, Economy and Innovation of the Lisbon City Council (CML).

ABOUT AVILA SPACES

Avila Spaces is the most awarded business centre in Portugal and is the innovation leader in the flexible workspaces market in the country. The Coworking and Business Lounge offer a premium environment, with cutting edge technology, where companies can grow in a sustained and dynamic way. In 2022, Avila Spaces will inaugurate the first coworking project inserted in the arcades of a shopping centre: the Avila Work City, at the Atrium Saldanha.

Founded in 2004, the Avila Spaces currently has over 700 national and international customers and is a member and representative in Portugal of the largest network of business centres in the world, the eOffice International Network. This network has over 300 locations and is managed from the United Kingdom. Avila Spaces has its headquarters in Lisbon, on Avenida da República and Avenida João Crisóstomo. It was recently awarded the ‘Best Coworking Space’ prize, in the South Europe Startup Awards, which reinforced the company’s leadership in the flexible and shared workspaces sector and its abilities to provide a culture and environment that stimulate innovation, in addition to its services and resources made available to fast-growing technology startups.

ABOUT ATRIUM SALDANHA

Inaugurated on 3 March 1998, the Atrium Saldanha is now a landmark in the city of Lisbon. The building, which includes a commercial and office area, has twelve floors in the main body and six parking levels. The shopping arcade, located on the first three floors, has 78 shops and a panoramic internal lift. On the ground floor, partially underground on the Praça Duque de Saldanha side, and with direct access from the rear street, Rua Fernão Lopes, we find the food court lit by the large skylight of the central Atrium and a wide range of restaurants. On levels 1 and 2 we find the remaining shops of this shopping centre. The offices, designed in accordance with the highest quality standards, are located on the nine upper floors of the building, with areas ranging from 40m2 to 3700m2, and access through four main lift cores, in a total of eighteen lifts. The office entrances are reached from Avenida Fontes Pereira de Melo and Avenida Casal Ribeiro. This unique building has always been a symbol of the rejuvenation of the capital.

Photo credits: Avila Spaces