About
La Colmena Coworking was created by Francesco and Paddy, with a lot of help from family and friends.
Our Story
It started as an idea back in 2019. Both Fran and I wanted to find a place to work from, to help keep work and family life a little more separate. And instead of just renting an office for the two of us, we decided to create a coworking space.
We spent a year or so casually looking at potential locations. We even briefly considered buying a building. One option had good lighting, but was small. Another had a cool layout, but turned out to have serious water damage.
Finally, we found our home in Calle Teniente Trujillo 2 Bajo, Prado del Rey. It needed renovations, but had a little room we could start working from right away, while we awaited the construction work.
What was expected to be around three months of renovations turned into almost nine. We were on hold until all of the construction work finished.
Our own renovations begin
After a little exercise in patience, by summer 2022 we could really get to work. The upstairs renovations were finished and we could commence our own.
We knocked down a big wall to create more space, and put in a large interior window to let in more light. A new front door went in too.
My uncle Martin flew over from Ireland to help us with our little kitchen.
Fran’s dad visited several times and did a tremendous amount of work.
Cristina poured her heart and soul into designing and decorating the space, hand painting beautiful tiles, selecting and sourcing furniture, and hand crafting other pieces of art for our walls.
Abraham helped with legal and accounting advice.
Rosa helped us assess several potential locations, and her husband Alfonso genorously drew our worker bees.
Antonio helped tiling our small patio.
And the owners of the space have been amazing to work with, generous and supportive from the beginning.
A hive of collaborative creation
So much collaboration in creating the space was the perfect start. An infusion of positive and creative energy to help make a place that we hope will be filled with collaborations, people doing diverse interesting projects, and that’s a pleasure to work from.
We opened our doors November 2022.
Come work at La Colmena
If you’d like to work at La Colmena, come try it for a day for free. Or, if you’re curious about coworking, drop by any time and say hi!
