Districte 22@, also known as 22@Barcelona or simply 22@, is a 200-hectare business area in the Sant Martí district, Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain). It arose in the year 2000 as an initiative of the Barcelona City Council to transform 200 hectares of industrial land in the neighborhood of Poblenou into an innovative productive district with modern spaces for the strategic concentration of knowledge-intensive activities.
Centered on Plaça de les Glòries Catalanes, it is part of one of Europe’s biggest urban regeneration schemes, begun during the 2000s and still ongoing
To achieve this objective, a new compact city model was created, where companies coexist with universities, research, training and technology transfer centers, as well as housing, equipment and green areas.
In this way, a new economic model is defined based on the development of five sectoral clusters: audiovisual media, information and communication technologies, energy, design and biotechnology, and on the execution of several strategic projects that facilitate the growth of companies, creativity, developments for coworking, networking, the attraction and retention of talent and access to innovation and technology, among others.
Since 2001, more than 4,500 new companies, which add up to 56,000 employees, have been located in the area.
At the end, the project will create 4 million square meters of constructed floor space, 3.2 million of which will be used for productive activities and 800,000 for housing and services.
So far, regeneration has begun on approximately 68% of the industrial areas in Poblenou.
Noteworthy among these plans is the Industrial Heritage Protection Plan, which consolidates protective measures for 114 elements, and outside the 22@Barcelona area, the Poblenou Historical Center Protection Plan and the Diagonal-Besòs Campus.
Since 2001 more than 4,500 new companies have opened offices in the Distrito 22@, including Yahoo! I+D, Mediapro, Microsoft, Sanofi-Aventis, Groupalia, Capgemini, Schneider Electric, SAP, NTT Data or Indra, and they have created more than 56,000 new jobs.
The estimated number of workers in the district is 90,000 (not counting freelance workers), 62.5% more than in 2000 for a total increase of 56,200 workers. Additionally, the global business turnover, not only of companies that carry out @ activities, totals some 8,900 million euros per year.
Since 2001, the resident population in 22@Barcelona has grown 22.8%, from 73,464 inhabitants to 90,214 (16,750 more people). This increase is 15% higher than the average for the city of Barcelona, which experienced a growth of 8% between 2001 and 2009.
Amont the most famous buildings of the area are: Forum Building, Torre Glòries, Diagonal Zero Zero, Hotel Barcelona Princess, Media-TIC Building, Comissió del Mercat de les Telecomunicacions (Edifici CMT).
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