World Trade Center Gibraltar Opens for Business
As the largest single commercial office building on the Rock at 15,750 sq m, the World Trade Center Gibraltar (WTCG) is intrinsic to the next phase of Gibraltar’s economic growth. The eight story development comprises office space, retail units, a data centre and a ground floor car park.
A team of Ramboll engineers provided building services, structural, acoustic and geotechnical expertise. The building demands a high degree of flexibility to accommodate everything from a one person start-up to major global corporations. In order to deliver this flexibility, the Ramboll team worked closely with the Client team and Architect Morgan Carn Partnership, to designed floor templates that allowed reconfiguration and adaptation of spaces to suit the individual needs of tenants, as and when required.
The slim line structural solution designed by the team also ensured the maximum lettable floor area, while remaining within the restricted overall building height, imposed due to its proximity to the airport.
The building’s design also included a large number of passive low energy design features and renewable energy technologies, which mean the building is on target to achieve an ‘A’ rated Energy Performance Certificate – a significant achievement for a highly serviced building of this nature.
The building was designed with resilience and connectivity in mind, too. It benefits from 100% emergency power generation and houses its own data centre which will be directly connected to the new Europe-India undersea fibre-optic infrastructure.
Commenting on the WTCG’s completion, Developer Gregory Butcher said; “First thing is to thank the design team, architects, engineers, project management and others… Gibraltar deserves the best and Gibraltar deserves the World Trade Center, and to become, and be a member of the World Trade Center Association. When business visitors visit Gibraltar we want the image that they take away to be the World Trade Center and for them to realise that we are at the forefront of commerce and international trade.”
Gibraltar Chief Minister, Fabien Picardo, added “Today, we can be proud to be here to inaugurate Gibraltar’s first World Trade Center. …Brexit is not the beginning of the end of Gibraltar, it’s actually just the end of the beginning, and the arrival of this first World Trade Center is Gibraltar saying to the world: “Here we come!”’
