So, you’ve just arrived in Madrid.
(Hi there! It’s great to see you!)
All it takes is a left turn out of Atocha train station, and a right at Calle del Áncora, then voilà! You’re here, at our brand new Coliving space.
Super close to the station, and right in the heart of Madrid, Atocha is a big up-and-coming area, so it’s a great place to be right now.
It’s beautiful, full of tree-lined streets, and there’s plenty going on.
What better way to meet – and get to know – your fellow Colivers than over a beer and good food?
Luckily, Calle del Áncora is full of bars, cafés and restaurants with great food and drinks.
Sésamo, for example. It’s a wonderful coffeehouse with fresh salads and tasty smoothies. They even have burgers, if you fancy treating yourself a little.
If it’s a bit later in the evening, why not try La Tarara? With delicious snacks and tapas, this charming tavern has around thirty different vermouths you can taste. Yes, thirty!
Prefer cocktails? Head to Havana-inspired Coppelia Madrid instead. They have unbeatable Cuban sandwiches and sometimes live music as well.
Or, if you’re more into craft beer and tacos, Spoiler Bar is the place to be. They even have an Escape Room – what a great icebreaker for you and your new fellow Colivers!
So, you’re all settled into your room, studio or apartment, and it’s time to take a look around the city.
It’s probably best to start at the attractions.
We’re lucky enough to have one of the world’s biggest modern art museums right on our doorstep – Reina Sofía.
Specializing in 20th-century pieces, it mainly shows Spanish art, with incredible collections by Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí and Joan Miró.
They often have temporary exhibitions as well, so make sure you check out their website to see what’s showing at the moment.
You could spend hours taking everything in, but make sure you leave enough time to visit Museo del Prado too.
It only takes 20 minutes to walk there from Urban Campus, Atocha, and it’s well worth it – it’s one of the world’s most prestigious art museums, with a mind-blowing collection of European art.
With paintings, sculptures, prints, and drawings, there are around 1,300 pieces on display at once, including Velázquez’s masterpiece ‘Las Meninas’.
While you’re visiting Museo del Prado, make sure you take a stroll down Paseo del Prado as well – Europe’s first tree-lined urban promenade.
Dating back to the 16th century, it was created as a space where people could enjoy nature inside the city. The trees are now hundreds of years old!
This boulevard is closely linked to El Retiro Park nowadays – they share the title ‘Landscape of Light’, and the area was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site back in 2021.
The park is a beautiful space in itself. It’s huge, filled with statues, monuments and fountains – there’s a Forest of Remembrance too, for the victims of the 2004 terror attacks in Madrid.
If you enjoy a day out in the open, you’ll love wandering through its landscaped gardens and renting a boat to paddle on the ponds.
Of course, we couldn’t talk about Atocha without mentioning the train station.
It’s just around the corner from Urban Campus, Atocha – it only takes 15 minutes to walk there – and it’ll make all the difference to your stay.
With hundreds of thousands of passengers using it every single day, there’s a reason they call it ‘a gateway to the rest of Europe’!
Just think – there are countless day trips you could go on and so many weekend getaways.
You’ll never have a dull moment with your fellow Colivers in Atocha.
The pandemic has changed a lot of things about how young people go about their lives –– from how they stay connected to friends and family, to how they use digital tools in day-to-day work. And while the pandemic isn’t over yet, we are beginning to see how some of these changes are leading to larger and perhaps more permanent adjustments in lifestyle. So in this post, we want to look specifically at some emerging ways of life that have come about as a result of the pandemic.
The need for remote work led a lot of people to discover that they could do their jobs from any location in the world. As a result, the number of people who identify themselves as digital nomads has increased significantly. And while “Digital Nomads” author Robert Litchfield has pointed out that this trend actually started before the pandemic, it’s undeniable that Covid-related conditions sped it up. We will likely see even more employees (as well as freelance workers) taking up “digital nomad” lifestyles moving forward, even as the pandemic subsides.
Rising prices in the housing markets have pushed a lot of young people to look for alternative solutions. This has helped give rise to coliving, which goes hand-in-hand with the digital nomadism trend to some extent. Having emerged in Silicon Valley (where it has long been possible for people with similar professional ambitions and backgrounds to link up in shared housing), the coliving trend is now evolving into co-working spaces with housing components. This is not only providing a new working and living model for young professionals in general, but also making it easier for them to get situated in cities like Paris or Madrid, which are beautiful and fascinating, but also rather expensive to rent or buy property in. And while coliving is not necessarily cheaper than other alternatives, it provides an all-inclusive blend of living and professional benefits that is invaluable to professionals, entrepreneurs, and freelancers alike. Space in a coliving environment is easy to book (thanks to flexible leasing arrangements) and provides access to energetic communities of like-minded professionals. It is for many an ideal environment in which to live and work independently.
Aside from the trend toward coliving, digital nomadism is also leading many independent workers to consider remote and/or mobile housing. Regarding remote trends, the pandemic inspired many move out of cities and toward suburbs and the countryside. A report at The Local cited 59% of Île-de-France inhabitants wishing to live somewhere less stressful following lockdowns, and the same percentage mentioned a desire to be closer to nature. Similar sentiments have been echoed across much of the world.
While many are leaving the cities are buying up suburban or countryside homes, this trend of migration has also coincided with a rise in mobile home-usage. Various reports have indicated that the RV business is thriving as people look for more flexible, untethered living arrangements (though the quality of RV camps is inconsistent, and some are more conducive to work than others).
While the previous two points concern working and living situations, there are also changes in how people conduct themselves. For one thing, young people have also become increasingly aware of how a large part of the population has to deal with unfair working conditions, as well as limited access to basic needs like education and healthcare; income inequality has also become more visible. However, Fareed Zakaria’s book “Ten Lessons For A Post-Pandemic World” suggests that the pandemic has also given us opportunities to change things like these for the better, and produce a more equal, empathetic society. And it’s in this vein that we’ve seen people adopting more generous lifestyles: Young people have driven movements for social change throughout the pandemic, and CNBC reported even early in the pandemic that 3 in 4 millennials had donated money. These trends suggest a move toward more equality-driven living.
While technology made it possible for people to stay connected during lockdowns, it also helped to demonstrate the limitations of digital-only social interactions. Sources from the hit streaming special “Inside” by Bo Burnham to Buzzfeed News articles quoting mental health experts have helped to highlight young people’s growing discomfort with fully digital social lives. And as a result, we’re seeing young people emerging from the pandemic pointedly prioritizing in-person social activity –– somewhat ironic in what is supposed to be the age of the metaverse. This is not to say that young people are surrendering social media or digital tools by any means. But they are making a point of recognizing and valuing human-to-human connection.
As this trend solidifies, it is also important to mention that government entities and urban planners have a responsibility to accommodate it. One of the few heartwarming aspects of the pandemic at its worst was that we did see major cities around the western world reorganizing and redistributing space –– providing more biking paths, wider walking avenues, and large spaces for safe outdoor dining. And in some cases, there have been indications that these changes will be permanent, or at least inspire long-term changes; for instance, a write-up at Forbes details plans for some 650 kilometres of cycling space to be built into Paris, in part at the expense of sidewalk parking spaces. This is only one example, but it speaks to how the growing preference for “in-person living” needs to be supported by the facilitation of such a lifestyle.
It’s an understatement to say that the pandemic brought about unprecedented change for people of all ages. But it’s also inspired younger generations to develop their own innovative solutions to different issues. As a result, many people have more flexible ideas regarding where to reside, how to work, and how to interact with and treat other people.
Exclusive for urbancampus.com by Aspen Emery
Urban Campus Boosts its growth in Spain with this new residence which means the company will now manage 3 buildings for the Socimi ELIX Vintage Residencial.
This new project will be located in Áncora street in Madrid and will open officially in September 2022.
The first full building coliving operator, Urban Campus, boosts its national expansion with the opening of its fourth coliving in Madrid: Urban Campus Atocha.
This is the third asset that the company operates with Socimi ELIX Vintage Residencial. After a positive experience with the two previous projects (Malasaña Madrid Coliving and Mellado Madrid Coliving).
Both companies share a transformative vision of the residential market, which is adapting to new living models, where social connections are promoted and where new work and leisure habits have evolved the way in which projects are developed to adapt to new residential needs. Additionally, Urban Campus is one of the only operators that manage its buildings under strict ESG criteria, with an efficient operation thanks to its transparent data registration system for both investor and tenant, increasing the efficiency of its assets, thanks to efficient management, marketing & sales efforts.
For Maxime Armand, COO and co-founder of Urban Campus, “With this new opening we are strengthening our commitment to Spain. Furthermore, our track record in residential assets management, adapting them to the concept of coliving, is an added value for companies such as ELIX Vintage Residencial, with whom we have great synergies”.
Urban Campus Atocha will have a total surface area of over 2,800 m2, the largest coliving that the company has operated so far, with other larger buildings planned in the short term. It will have 57 studios and the largest communal areas ever designed for a coliving. It will be located at Calle Áncora 20, in the dynamic neighbourhood of Delicias, very close to Atocha station.
The project will complete its refurbishment works in the last quarter of the current year and its residential options will be: 22 studios for two tenants with shared living room and kitchen and 35 individual studios with their own living room and kitchen.
About Urban Campus
Founded in 2016, Urban Campus is the first operator of complete coliving buildings. With its innovative model, it is redefining the rules of residential housing in major European cities by offering coliving & coworking spaces adapted to new lifestyles. With a DNA of its own, based on satisfying the new residential needs of young professionals in major cities, it offers quality buildings, fosters community and provides a new residential experience overall.
About ELIX Vintage Residencial
Elix Vintage Residencial SOCIMI, S.A. is a real estate investment vehicle specialising in the acquisition and refurbishment of residential properties in central areas of Madrid and Barcelona. Elix VRS currently has 30 buildings in different development stages. This patrimony is focused on covering the different residential rental needs, ranging from traditional housing to medium and short term housing, including corporate and coliving.
Marta Torres Vilas
+34 636 484 866
marta.torresvilas@urbancampus.com
Ana, our Head of Operations Iberia, was interviewed in EjePrime.
In this interview, she talks about Urban Campus and our plan to end the year with more than 250 units in Spain.
She also explains our evolution in the last years, occupancy rates, and our expansion plans in Spain and Europe.
Click here to read the full interview.
Casilda, our Head of Business Development in Spain, was interviewed in Valencia Plaza.
In this interview, she talks about Urban Campus expansion in Spain, and about our new Coliving in Valencia “Ayora Valencia, Coliving”.
She also details why we have chosen Valencia, to open a new Coliving and how the Coliving market has evolved after the Covid pandemic.
Click here to read the full interview.
Madrid, 16th February 2022 – Urban Campus, a national leader in the management of coliving buildings, launches its first greenfield project in Spain in collaboration with both Batipart (investor) and WHITE Investing RE (developer). With this opening, Urban Campus expands geographically outside Madrid and strategically enters the greenfield buildings sector. This new coliving will be located in Valencia, in the up and coming neighbourhood of Ayora, where construction has already started. It will house 41 studios and more than 200 m2 of communal areas.
Urban Campus, together with the investor and the developer, are in charge of the project conceptualisation phase, as well as the interior design. Once open, Urban Campus will be in charge of operating the building under a management contract.
This opening strengthens Urban Campus’ leadership position in Spain, seeking to promote this residential coliving model in Spain’s main cities. To achieve this objective, it is actively seeking opportunities for land and/or residential assets to enter into agreements with developers (as it has done with WHITE Investing RE) and investors for the development and/or refurbishment of buildings. Urban Campus is currently interested in developing residential buildings ranging from 2,000 m2 to 8,000 m2 in cities such as Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Malaga, Alicante, Seville, Murcia, Palma de Mallorca, Bilbao, etc.
After its launch in 2016 in Paris and its arrival in Spain in 2017, following a positive reception of its first three projects in the capital, Urban Campus kicks off its expansion in Spain and continues its growth in Europe. After this opening, it will continue its expansion, with the aim of opening 30 buildings in the next 5 years.
Casilda Mulliez, Expansion Director at Urban Campus in Spain and Portugal is quoted: “The commitment towards geographical diversification and the development of our model in a new building is the next logical step in Urban Campus’ expansion. Thanks to our knowledge of operationally active coliving buildings, Urban Campus has proven to be capable of advising from day one on the design of the buildings and the optimisation of the spaces.”
At Batipart, Martin Fauchille, Director of Acquisitions Spain and Portugal, “We are delighted to carry out this first transaction in Valencia, hand in hand with Urban Campus. Through our alliance we want to promote this residential coliving model in Spain’s main cities.”
“For WHITE Investing RE this is a special project, as it is the first licensed coliving project to be launched in Spain, additionally in collaboration with an investor such as Batipart, and a leading coliving operator in the market such as Urban Campus, which consolidates us as a reference point as an asset provider at an institutional level”, Jose Solero CEO WHITE Investing RE.
The new Urban Campus project in the city of Valencia is a coliving residential development that will have 41 fully furnished and equipped individual studios, and more than 200 m2 of common areas: gym, coworking, cinema room, shared kitchen with dining and lounge area, laundry area and, on the rooftop, a barbeque, showers and a chill-out zone. In short, a property that offers all the amenities for professionals looking to enjoy private areas, but also have access to an international community as well as networking opportunities in the same building.
Urban Campus offers an all-inclusive lease starting from three months, with online bookings and an app developed internally which offers access to weekly events and connectivity between all members of the community, as well as the possibility to hire additional services. This innovative residential model that Urban Campus puts on the market is aimed at professionals between 25 and 45 years of age who are looking for the convenience of a rental with all services included. A more complete alternative to traditional leasing.
Furthermore, in its objective of promoting sustainable projects, the Urban Campus Ayora project will try to obtain the best environmental qualification.
During the third quarter of 2023, the first building’s tenants will be welcomed.
Founded in 2016, Urban Campus is the first operator of coliving buildings. With its innovative model, it is redefining the residential housing rules in major European cities by offering coliving and coworking spaces adapted to new lifestyles. With its own DNA, based on meeting the new residential needs of young professionals in major cities, it offers quality buildings, creates community and provides a new residential experience.
A family-owned group founded by Charles Ruggieri in 1988, Batipart invests and develops projects in the real estate, hotel and tourism sectors in Europe, Africa and North America. In Europe, the Batipart Group is present in seven countries: Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Portugal, Switzerland and Luxembourg through its offices in Luxembourg, Paris, Toulouse, Madrid and Milan. Its European assets represent 4 billion euros under management.
Specialised company in capital management through real estate assets and projects.
For further information and interviews:
Marta Torres Vilas
+34 636 484 866
marta.torresvilas@urbancampus.com
Other sources:
– El Economista – Urban Campus abre el primer ‘coliving’ de obra nueva de España
– EjePrime – Batipart promoverá un ‘coliving’ con 41 estudios en Valencia
– Idealista – Urban Campus y Batipart promoverán un ‘coliving’ con 41 estudios en Valencia
– Business Immo – Urban Campus va développer la première résidence de coliving en Vefa d’Espagne
– Brainre.news – White Investing vende a Batipart el primer ‘coliving’ de obra nueva de Valencia
– Valencia Plaza – Urban Campus abrirá en València su primer coliving de obra nueva de España
– Interempresas – White Investing desarrolla el primer coliving de obra nueva de València
– El Periódico de Aquí – White Investing desarrolla el primer coliving de obra nueva de València
Q’Crack – A podcast to learn from the best!
Alberto Cortés moved to Urban Campus Mellado Madrid Coliving and hit the ground running. Within just the first few weeks of his stay, he had organized a padel tournament, mapped out an awards ceremony and planned the first Q’crack interview to take place in the coliving space… the first of many.
Q’Crack, created by Alberto Cortes and Leonardo Armas, is an entrepreneurially driven podcast that interviews individuals who have excelled in their industry on a personal or professional level. They highlight trade secrets, discuss everything from failures to success, and get exclusive one-on-ones.
The dynamic duo knows how to attract talent, since they’ve launched they’ve featured CEO’s, top-performing athletes, tech founders and more.
Their last interview, organized in one of the Mellado Coliving’s common areas featured none other than Carlos Arevalo Moreno, Director of one of the most reputable Spanish bakeries, Pastelería Mallorca. Residents joined in as Carlos divulged the ups and downs of running a family business, his core responsibilities, and what it’s like to manage one of the most beloved and well-known bakeries in the Spanish capital, which by the way, turned 90 last year… Chapeau!
What are the key learnings he’s had throughout the years? How do you adapt a traditional family business to a constantly evolving market? How do you manage the pressure of it all?
We recently created a new Spotify Podcasts Playlist including our favourites, and just added the newest Q’Crack podcast to it. Make sure to check it out!
Urban Campus was featured in a new article written in ACEPRENSA, a digital medium.
This article focuses on Coliving as a new lifestyle and as an optimal option for professionals to make the most out of their living space while being able to focus on their professional endeavours.
Click HERE to read the full article.
RTVE (Spanish National TV) visited our Malasaña Madrid Coliving last Friday!
They wanted to see first hand, what it is like to live in one of our spaces, so they interviewed Matías & Diana, two of our Malasaña residents.
Matías and Diana, have been living at Urban Campus for over 3 years. They both met in our first coliving residence, Mellado Madrid Coliving in Chamberí, and then decided to move in together to our Malasaña Coliving looking for more space and privacy to keep developing their relationship as a couple.
Coliving is gaining more popularity as an alternative residential option, offering professionals an all-inclusive offer, flexibility in fully furnished studios and apartments, inside shared buildings, so they can enjoy both their privacy and share common areas with others.
Watch the full report below.
This week, COPE radio station did a broadcast about the living options young professionals are choosing in Spain after the COVID-19 crisis.
Coliving is also an option that is gaining importance, that’s why Urban Campus Malasaña Coliving resident, Noemi, was invited to do an interview to explain her experience living with us, why she chose coliving and all the benefits this alternative brings to someone in her situation. Some of the key aspects she highlighted were comfort, flexibility and community.
You can listen to the whole interview below! (Spanish)