The year 2020, which is coming to an end, has affected many areas of life. It has also obviously affected the commercial space market, including office space. Some companies, employees and experts were initially delighted with home office – the flexibility of work, the interweaving of professional and private duties, and the saving of time for commuting. However, just as many employers – as well as employees themselves – began to feel difficulties in managing teams and the negative consequences of a lack of contact with people. Today, most professionals say that the office will remain a fundamental issue, and that as soon as the pandemic is over, it will again become a key place for the development of interaction and collaboration of teams.

The commercialization of offices in Olivia has not slowed down

In Olivia Business Centre, the passing year confirms the latter trend, and the selected lease areas clearly show that companies look to the coming years with great hope. The year 2020 was particularly rich in contract renewals in all seven buildings of the Gdańsk business centre. This was often connected with the selection of space by the existing Residents, but completely new contracts were also concluded, which allow us to sum up the passing year as a particularly successful one in the area of commercialization of Olivia Business Centre.

“Olivia was the place where the largest transaction of 2020 took place in our entire region ,” he says Maciej Kotarski, Leasing Director at Olivia Business Centre. – The development of one of the Residents and the extension of the agreement related to the expansion of the office area to over 15,000 m2 made us talk about the second largest lease agreement in the over ten years history of Olivia, which is only a few hundred square meters behind the largest one.

One of the largest Olivia Residents is EPAM, which this year took over new offices in the Olivia Prime B building.

– EPAM is an IT company listed on the New York Stock Exchange and one of the largest IT employers in the Pomeranian region. We are very proud that it is developing in our country and we are trying to make this expansion as comfortable as possible. The company was already a Prime A Resident, so the addition of Prime B allowed for a smooth expansion of the EPAM office, without any complications – adds Aleksandra Majdańczuk, Deputy Director at Olivia Business Centre.

In Olivia Prime, most of the Residents (including the above-mentioned EPAM) have their own, private terraces or loggias. For the warm six months, they are used by employees for work (on deckchairs, with a laptop on their lap), they are also used to relax during breaks. In addition, on the roof of the building there are 4 large terraces for common use, which are very popular among employees and have already become one of the most popular spaces for Residents to integrate in OBC.

This year, the contract with Randstad was also extended.

– The company occupies almost a hundred times less space than the largest tenant in Olivia, but it is equally important to us. It is not only a well-known brand, respected in the HR and business services industry, but above all a provider of services for other Olivia Residents. It is very important to us that the tenant-mix is attractive to our tenants and that they can provide and order most of the necessary services in Olivia itself. We are very grateful that Małgorzata Mudyna and Piotr Kośla have chosen us again – emphasizes Maciej Kotarski.

The scale of the project and its potential have a significant impact on the excellent results in Olivia. Of course, the location helps a lot with this.

“According to experts on the commercial real estate market, Oliwa as an office destination is developing the fastest of all locations of this type in the Tri-City ,” explains Maciej Kotarski. – By the end of next year, the Tri-City will exceed one million m2 of offices, while in the Oliwa district alone there are already over 350,000 offices. m2, i.e. more than 35% of the agglomeration’s resources.

Not only the largest companies decide to expand their lease space. Roedl&Partner, a financial and legal advisory agency, has been a resident of OBC for many years, but it was only this year that it decided to open its first independent premises; in the Olivia Four building.

– Presence Roedl&Partner is an important addition to our tenant-mix, as it is a company that can provide services to other Residents by performing audits and legal services. We would like to thank Piotr Mrowiec and Justyna Kopańczyk-Yahya for their long-term cooperation, and Michał Rafałowicz from Cresa for his professional advice. says Paulina Baran, Senior Account Manager at Olivia Business Centre.

One of the largest Residents in Olivia Four is Acxiom , which this year has increased its area to almost 2,000 m2, extending its long-term contract with OBC.

– It is supposed to be an office that will provide employees with exceptional comfort of work and spending time, equipped m.in. billiards, ping-pong, game consoles or darts… The Olivia Four building itself is very convenient. On its ground floor there is a canteen with excellent food, a large conference center with meeting rooms for up to 200 people, as well as a laundry and a shoemaker. We would like to thank our partners from Acxiom, Karolina Bykowska and Tomasz Świecki – says Joanna Jankowska, Senior Account Manager at Olivia Business Centre.

– Olivia has had a number of other contracts renewed this year. Some of them are connected with the selection of office space by clients whose names remain confidential. New contracts or extensions of existing ones concern the following buildings: Olivia Six, Olivia Gate, Olivia Star, Olivia Point and Olivia Tower – says Maciej Kotarski. –Anyway In all the buildings of the Centre, we have our smaller and bigger successes, which allow us to sum up 2020 as a good and important year. Certainly, the Prime B building, commissioned in the spring, is of great importance in this context, enabling our Residents to expand within one location.

The industry is now in a period seen by many experts as a time of great change. Some companies prefer to postpone their decisions until the pandemic is under control; A few, on the other hand, are already deciding to rely primarily on remote work (Remote First) and vacate a significant part of the offices they have occupied so far. This still applies to very few entities, and specialists quite unanimously describe their decisions as hasty.

“For long-term forecasting, it is crucial to constantly analyze megatrends spanning decades, such as returns to city centers or electromobility,” emphasizes Maciej Kotarski. “Both have been slowed down by the pandemic and may regress temporarily, but it is difficult to imagine stopping or reversing them. Behind the “return to city centers” there is gregarious, human nature or the desire to avoid unpleasant aspects of life, such as troublesome and time-consuming commuting or social isolation. The need for a workplace to exist as close as possible to the place of residence also plays a huge role – Adds.

Safety technologies that allow people to return to the office

The second area that Olivia Business Centre focused on in 2020 is security. In the short term, this is the most important element that is to ensure that companies will be able to make decisions about ending remote work and home office with peace of mind. Since the second quarter, a comprehensive strategy has been implemented at OBC to ensure the safety of residents. It includes a number of initiatives and solutions.

–The most groundbreaking is the ion air purification technology implemented at the turn of November and December, which has so far been used in the world’s most prestigious buildings, such as the White House or the Presidential Palace in Abu Dhabi. The installed devices saturate all rental areas with ions that have the ability to destroy viruses, bacteria and other pathogens in the ventilated air. The air purification process takes place continuously while people are in a given room or office – explains Krzysztof Król, responsible for communication at Olivia.

As part of the aforementioned strategy, a team of experts was established to ensure the safety of the Residents. As a result of his analysis, active titanium coatings were used in the common parts of the buildings (elevators, lobbies, access paths to the garage halls). The coating, which lasts at least 12 months, creates surfaces free of pathogenic microorganisms. Bacteria, fungi (including moulds) and viruses are eliminated and their residues are broken down into carbon dioxide and water. In addition, the air filtration level in the air handling units has been increased from G4 to F7, which is the highest level of filtration currently available. Sensors for VOC (Volatile Organic Compounds) and particulate matter (PM) pollution were installed. Thanks to this, it is possible to monitor air purity and, as a result, eliminate harmful compounds from the air drawn in from the outside and distributed inside buildings. In addition, air exchange intensity control systems have been installed based on the knowledge of current CO2 measurement results, which contributes to a significant increase in the comfort of staying in the workplace. As part of the strategy implemented in Olivia Business Centre, additional solutions have also been prepared to increase the safety of office employees: sterilizers of entry cards have been purchased, elevator settings have been changed, so that in the “stand by” mode, the lift cabin remains open, allowing fresh air into it.

Work on adapting offices to the new reality

– Since the beginning of the pandemic, Olivia has been working on the arrangement of lease space. 2020 was an exceptionally challenging year in this respect. The work of our design and implementation team has not slowed down – says Artur Kuczyński, Director of the Arrangement Department at Olivia Business Centre. – The situation in the world has forced us to be even more flexible, creative, and react even faster. Our role never ends with the handover of the premises. Tenants in OBC are very dynamically changing and developing teams, we often encounter the need to introduce changes in an office that has already been completed. It can be said that we are used to various types of challenges, arranging the space we are aware that it will be subject to changes.

Anna Branicka , a leading architect in Olivia’s Interior Design Department, summarizing the year 2020 emphasizes that it was also a time of development for the members of the design team.

– This year, the reality surprised us all, we had to explore additional areas, deliver a slightly different, more universal product. Tenants needed more support in defining their needs, understanding them, and determining a new form of the office. We thoroughly analyze all reports, world press, research, and expert opinions on safer office space design. Already in April, we started to develop a system of individual support for individual tenants in adapting their offices to the new situation and improving the comfort of work. The expectations of companies are diverse, which is why we are constantly analysing new variants to be able to present everyone with the best possible offer.

“We are taking advantage of this specific moment of pause to conduct in-depth research, look at changing needs, draw conclusions and further develop our competences and offer ,” adds Artur Kuczyński and emphasizes that this year was also associated with new perspectives for his team of architects. ” Thanks to this approach, we had the opportunity to work with our OBC tenants also in other locations outside the Tri-City: in Warsaw, Krakow and Prague.

Success is written by those who find new business opportunities in difficult periods and are able to quickly adapt to the changing reality. The year 2020 has shown that despite the huge scale on which Olivia operates, the business centre was able to use its potential to implement changes much faster than smaller facilities of this category.