Castellum's United Spaces Lands Prestigious Geely Assignment

GOTHENBURG, Sweden, Sept. 9, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Castellum-owned coworking company – United Spaces – has signed an exclusive agreement with Zhejiang Geely Holding Group ("Geely"), the Chinese automobile manufacturer and mobility services provider. The joint project will give United Spaces the responsibility to develop and manage a major coworking operation at Geely's newly-invested facility, currently known as the Geely Innovation Centre in Europe, which is under development at the Lindholmen cluster in Gothenburg. 

With Geely having a clearly expressed view of Sweden as its second corporate home, the company has further chosen to establish a new innovation hub with 3,500 top of the range workspaces in Gothenburg. Geely's vision is to create a campus where all of its operations are represented, with focus on establishing cross-cultural exchange, mutual learning, and an innovation hub. The objective is to promote openness and cooperation, thereby promoting innovation.

To succeed with this vision, United Spaces has been chosen as a partner to establish a major coworking environment, i.e., an area of versatile workplaces to accommodate people from various operations, within a space that encourages dialogue and cooperation.

"This is an important and prestigious cooperation for us. We're very proud that Geely has placed confidence in our ability to sustain our part in creating the Geely Innovation Centre in Europe. We share the same vision, which is to create a flexible and dynamic work-and-meeting space that is sustainable and inspiring, while promoting cooperation and creativity," says Yvonne Sörensen Björud, CEO of United Spaces. 

Relatively speaking, the office and meeting-place facilities created by United Spaces is regarded to be a massive coworking project by Nordic standards. The working area itself is 4,000 sq. m. and can accommodate around 500-600 people. The cooperation agreement between United Spaces and Geely will run for ten years and entails an initial investment of MSEK 14. The workplaces will be fully completed for use in 2021. 

"We're convinced that United Spaces, a pioneer in the coworking concept, is the best partner for Geely, in our efforts to create an open, inviting and collaborative campus, where innovation will be created through cooperation," says Magnus Koch, Head of Operations, Geely Innovation Centre in Europe. 

The Geely Innovation Centre in Europe will be completed entirely by 2022. The centre will take up a gross surface area amounting to 104,000 sq. m., consisting of five buildings. In addition to office spaces – cafés, restaurants, retail stores and hotels will also be made available to the general public and Geely representatives.

About coworking:
Our working processes are continuously changing to match the pace of adding new generations to the workforce, as well as technological developments, an increased need for networks, and working cooperatively. These changes significantly affect our workplaces and they increase demands for versatility and new services. Coworking is an answer to changing requirements. Within coworking, companies sign on to a membership, which provides the opportunity to utilize versatile workplaces that promote more dynamic meetings, cooperation and knowledge exchanges, as well as offering a vast array of shared services.  
Coworking has made a substantial entry into several major cities and is predicted to grow significantly. For instance, in central London and New York's Manhattan, coworking already comprises 25-30 percent of newly signed office leases.   

For further information, contact: 

Yvonne Sörensen Björud, CEO, United Spaces, +46 709-984 10 77 

United Spaces is one of the leading coworking players in the Nordics, with over 13,000 square metres of office space in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö regions. The company's business approach is to create office-and-meeting spaces for members who would like to see themselves and their companies grow, attract the best and the brightest talent, discover new ideas, and create contacts. The company was founded 20 years ago by Göran Garberg and Lars Rydén, and acquired earlier in 2019 by Castellum. For further information, visit: www.unitedspaces.com.    

Castellum is one of the largest listed real estate companies in Sweden. Property values amount to SEK 91.4 billion and holdings comprise office, warehousing/logistics and public sector properties, covering a total leasable area of
4.2 million square metres. The real estate portfolio is owned and managed under the Castellum brand through a decentralized organization with strong and clear local presence in 20 cities in Sweden and also in Copenhagen and Helsinki. In 2018, Castellum received two awards for sustainability efforts; designated Number One in the world by GRESB for the offices-and-logistics sector, as well as the Level Gold award for sustainability reporting from the EPRA (European Public Real Estate Association). In addition, Castellum is the only Nordic real-estate and construction company elected to the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI), joining a select group of companies in the world who perform best on sustainability issues. The Castellum share is listed on Nasdaq Stockholm Large Cap. For further information visit www.castellum.com.

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