Author: Katarzyna Halicka

The summer period is usually a time when business slows down, offices become more relaxed, deadlines lose some of their urgency, and the holiday season tends to stretch them out even further. This is the typical summer office reality in most workplaces — but it’s not a rule that applies everywhere. Gdańsk’s Olivia Centre sums up the summer and proves that this season, the largest business center in Poland was anything but short on initiatives.

Residents enjoy special privileges

Summer has inevitably come to an end, and the close of the season offers a good opportunity for a summary — especially since Olivia Centre has plenty to be proud of. The diversity, intensity, and sheer number of events is impressive. For years, Olivia has been running a range of projects designed to bring the community together. In doing so, it aims to create added value for its residents and their employees. These efforts are centered around numerous passion development clubs, covering areas as varied and unexpected as a sailing club and a choir, a photography club and a football league, historical walks through Gdańsk’s districts, and conversations between attorney Bogusław Wieczorek and experts in the “Rozmowy O!” talks.

This season was rich in events — not only on the Olivia premises, but also across many districts of Gdańsk and on the waters of the Gulf of Gdańsk. For the second year in a row, employees of Residents had the chance to train in beach volleyball on full-size courts right in the heart of Olivia. As many as 24 teams took part in the summer tournament. Daily training sessions were made easier thanks to an online court booking system, which employees greatly appreciate. One of the main challenges with seaside courts is precisely the need to wait for availability.

The Polish national volleyball team trained on these courts

One of the most exciting events of the season was the training camp of the National Deaf Beach Volleyball Team, both men’s and women’s squads, who trained at Olivia ahead of the season’s biggest event — the Deaf European Championships. It turned out that the Olivia courts brought them luck, as in July, Team Poland won two medals: gold, claimed by the men’s team, and bronze, won by the women’s team. This marked the first time in the history of Polish deaf beach volleyball that Poland’s representatives won two medals at a European Championship.

This season’s sporting events also included a day of Hyrox-style workouts led by Błażej Wesołowski, as well as Active Day, during which participants had access to numerous activities throughout the day. At 7 a.m., they set off to paddle on SUP boards, while another group practiced yoga on Olivia’s patio at 8 a.m., and the rest of the day was packed with attractions such as a Ninja-style workout, a body composition analysis on a professional scale under the supervision of CityFit trainers, an Air Bike workout, and group dance sessions with choreography lessons. That day also featured the season wrap-up of the Olivia Centre football league, with the day’s finale taking place on the waters of the bay during an evening sailing session at sunset with the organizers of Olivia Yacht Club.

In August, six-time Paralympic champion Natalia Partyka invited everyone to a morning warm-up: a table tennis table-running tournament, during which participants had the chance to compete against Poland’s multi-medalist and start their day with some activity. Olivia’s sporty summer was also full of attractions such as padel tournaments, participation in the Ultras Oliwski run, and the official presentation of Energa Trefl Gdańsk players ahead of the volleyball season, which also featured an exhibition match, a chill-out zone with music, and players signing autographs, posing for photos, and sharing their passion for the sport.

History and community involvement

For another year in a row, Olivia was a partner of the “Viva Oliva” district festival — an event full of concerts, outdoor antique fairs, open-air painting sessions, theater and music performances, as well as games and activities for all ages. This summer, Olivia Centre also invited everyone to explore Gdańsk’s districts with the Local Guides. During the walks, history enthusiasts and local residents shared literary inspirations and artistic themes connected to each location, often adding personal touches to their stories. Each walk offered a new way to discover the city. At times, the stories told by the guides even surprised the oldest residents of a given district. This year, the walks covered such Gdańsk districts as Siedlce, Dolne Miasto, Biskupia Górka, and Oliwa.

As in previous years, the season of outdoor events closed with a performance by 6 combined choirs, including the Olivia Centre Choir. This time, the centerpiece of the concert was a performance of Grzegorz Turnau’s “Między Ciszą, a ciszą.” Nearly 200 people gathered on Olivia’s patio, performing not only this year’s featured piece but also their own arrangements of popular songs, including Katarzyna Nosowska’s “Sobie i Wam.”

A benefit for everyone

Many initiatives come from the Residents themselves. This was the case with the Olivia Choir, which owes its beginnings to Remigiusz Wojciechowski, Director of Bayer’s Business Services Center. It was his passion for singing that inspired him to establish an in-house choir. The need to develop it further and attract more male voices led the initiative to evolve into a project that now includes over 40 people from more than a dozen companies.

Running passion development clubs is often quite a challenge, but experience shows that they serve many important functions — and their significance for the center itself, its employees, and the companies leasing offices at Olivia is hard to overstate. A few years ago, we recognized the enormous potential within a community of several thousand people who work at Olivia every day — says Dorota Buzek-Garzyńska, Director of Communications at Olivia Centre. We decided to make the most of it by creating a space not only for work, but also for pursuing interests, spending time actively, developing new skills, and building relationships. Today, we organize dozens of diverse sporting, cultural, and developmental initiatives that attract hundreds of participants and have become an important part of our community’s life. We saw their significance especially clearly during the return to offices after the pandemic. On the days when we organized events and activities, we noticed higher attendance at Olivia. That showed us that an office can be more than just a place to carry out daily tasks — it can be a space for meetings, inspiration, and shared experiences. Today, we can confidently say that this offering is one of the elements that shape Olivia’s unique character. It’s used by employees of our Residents, for whom the opportunity to take part in a rich program of events is an added value and a complement to their employee benefits. Importantly, our initiatives matter not only for integration and atmosphere, but also serve as a meaningful argument in the sales conversations of our commercialization team. They show that Olivia is not just modern office space, but above all, an active and engaged community.