Comet Meetings,the expert in corporate meetings and events, will operate the Arboretum meeting and conference center under a commercial lease. Located 15 minutes from the Place de l'Étoile in Paris, Arboretum, scheduled for completion in December 2022, is Europe's largest solid-wood campus, offering 125,000 m2 of low-carbon office and service space in a 9-hectare private park on the banks of the Seine. Covering 2,300 m2 on four levels, the Comet Meetings meeting and seminar center is located in "La Fabrique de la Connaissance", one of Arboretum's two rehabilitated industrial buildings. Starting in 2023, Comet Meetings will offer a new "green" meeting concept just a stone's throw from Paris.
Like each of the sites chosen by Comet Meetings, Arboretum's "Knowledge Factory" is an atypical building, designed by the Hubert &Roy agency. Its design is the work of the Comet Meetings teams, who give a world and a color to each of their sites, capitalizing on the site's identity and history. Its layout will be designed around the theme of the factory and the contemporary factory revisited, bringing together the old and the new. The site, both peaceful and energizing, will be exemplary in terms of its environmental impact, and will enable companies to bring their staff together in a place conducive to exchange and collaboration. It will provide strong arguments for managers who want to encourage their teams to return to office life in a different way. It will be open to Arboretum companies and their partners, but also to all external companies wishing to organize an event or seminar. "The environment is one of the essential components of a successful meeting. A venue like Arboretum is an opportunity for our customers who don't have the time or budget for a green seminar outside Paris. It will enable them to experience a day's meeting with the advantages of the countryside without the commute!" enthuses VictorCarreau, CEO and co-founder of Comet Meetings.
Located in Nanterre, where La Défense once again meets the Seine, the Arboretum campus has been designed as a "forest-city". It comprises five new solid wood buildings and two rehabilitated industrial buildings. Designed by renowned architects François Leclercq, Nicolas Laisné, Dimitri Roussel and Hubert & Roy, Arboretum offers a natural working environment just 15 minutes by RER from Place de l'Etoile in Paris. The 9-hectare inner park is a veritable arboretum with over 1,000 remarkable trees, and includes a 3,200 m2 vegetable garden and orchard. Built in solid cross-laminated timber (CLT), the offices offer permanent contact with nature, thanks in particular to covered terraces on each level, for a total of 17,000 sq.m. Adjacent to the Chemin-de-l'Île park, they are surrounded by 25 hectares of green space, with direct access to the banks of the Seine. The campus features a wide range of shops and services: 8 cafés and restaurants, a boutique and, within the two rehabilitated industrial buildings, a 1,900 m2 sports club and a meeting and seminar center - to be operated by Comet - with an auditorium for up to 400 people. Arboretum, the first buildings of which will be delivered at the end of 2022, and which will welcome its first occupants from 2023, is being developed by WO2 on behalf of ICAWOOD and other institutional and family co-investors including BNP Paribas Real Estate, Primonial and Peugeot Invest.
WO2 has applied a systematic approach to reducing the carbon footprint of the entire project. Thanks to the use of solid wood and the construction of ten geothermal wells, which will provide 80% of heating and air-conditioning needs, the carbon footprint will be halved compared to a traditional, state-of-the-art concrete building. Arboretum, which boasts the highest levels of certification, is the largest tertiary complex in France to be awarded the BBCA excellent (low-carbon building) label. Constructed from solid cross-laminated timber (CLT), the offices offer psychological and physiological benefits recognized by researchers for reducing stress. The buildings also break with the traditional codes of closed offices, with floor plates of up to 4,000 square meters in a single block. Workspace layouts are modular, partitioned or open-plan, with ceiling heights of 3.10 metres on the first day.
A place steeped in history
"La Fabrique de la Connaissance", one of the two rehabilitated industrial buildings in which Comet Meetings will set up its meeting and conference center, bears witness to the site's industrial past. It stands on the site where Papeteries de la Seine was located, from its creation in 1904 until 2011, to ensure the print run of the LePetit Parisien newspaper. Formerly known as "de la pâte à Paille", this building has a history: it saw the development of an industrial process for making paper pulp from wheat straw. Comet Meetings is committed to giving each of its sites a soul by capitalizing on their history. This new venue, spanning four floors with seventeen meeting rooms, will be no exception!
Comet Arboretum will be able to accommodate from 2 to 400 people, thanks in particular to the future events room on the 2nd floor. The new Comet, like its predecessors, will offer a high-quality catering service adapted to the seasons and to the needs of customers who want a healthy lunch break that doesn't drag on too long.
→ 2,300 m2 operated by Comet
→ Campus architects: DREAM, Leclercq Associes, Nicolas Laisné Architectes, Hubert& Roy
→ Campus design: Agence Saguez
→ Comet venue design : Comet Meetings
→ Scheduled to open in 2023
→ Campus capacity: 10,000 employees
→ 9 hectares of wooded parkland, a 7-minute walk from Nanterre Université station.
