Barcelona residents haven't thought much about their sea for a long time, no matter how much outsiders tell them it would be something they would visit every day. No one forgets that the Olympic Games made it easier to reach it, but everyone also knows that then tourism arrived and things got complicated. Under this premise, the City Council is working to reconnect both parts, making the beach not only serve for swimming, when one manages to find a spot, but for much more. "We want citizens to return to the sea, not just to go to the beach, Barceloneta, or a restaurant, but because they are going to work or study, being able to look at the sea again with a broader and much more everyday vision," summarized Mayor Jaume Collboni.
This commitment to the sea as an economic engine has accelerated with the arrival of the America's Cup, a competition that has gone unnoticed among Barcelona residents, with a last chance to seduce them starting this week with its final. What it has served for is to accelerate investments, as has become clear in a Port Vell more open to citizens and a completely renovated Port Olímpic. Taking advantage of the maritime interest that the regatta has aroused among institutions, the City Council has announced a new investment to promote three new facilities with a focus on the blue economy. The outlay will be 142 million euros, of which the council will contribute more than half and the rest will be distributed among the other agents involved. "All this is only possible if we are different actors working in the same direction," remarked the Deputy Mayor for Economy, Jordi Valls. In total, the city will add 45,000 square meters dedicated to research and entrepreneurship, with the intention of having them finished by 2028.
"It highlights the blue revolution that Barcelona is immersed in," Collboni remarked. As of today, businesses related to the maritime world range from fishing, port activities, and transport to tourism and water sports, with new avenues such as marine renewable energies. All in all, they represent 4.3% of the GDP and 1.4% of employment in the Catalan capital. The new members of the city's maritime ecosystem will be, on the one hand, the Barcelona Maritime Technology Park, promoted by the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), and the Barcelona Sea of Science center, by the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC). Both will study the sea, but from different points of view. The third piece will be the Blue Tech Port, a space to host startups in this sector promoted by the Port of Barcelona.
The Barcelona Maritime Technology Park will allow the UPC to expand its infrastructures dedicated to maritime and nautical engineering, as well as transfer the teaching of master's degrees linked to these studies. For example, there will be a hydrodynamic pool that will generate waves to see how a structure resists or a towing tank that will test moving ships to analyze how they respond. Located on Paseo de Joan de Borbó, near the W hotel, the center, which will also have the collaboration of the port and the Generalitat, will have an area of 15,600 square meters and will involve an investment of 56 million euros. Works will begin next year and are expected to finish in 2028.
In the case of the Barcelona Mar de Ciencia center, the focus will be on citizenship, with the aim of transmitting ocean culture to as many people as possible through talks, exhibitions, workshops, and training. After a long time of having it in mind, but not finding where to place it, the city council has located 3,000 square meters in a space that was previously underutilized between the Hotel Arts and the Torre Mapfre, very close to the Institute of Marine Sciences (ICM-CSIC). "The city is not yet finished if we make the effort to imagine new spaces," the mayor defended, who on Monday inaugurated the sports city of Club de Fútbol de Damm, a project that had also been eternalizing and had ended up finding its location without leaving the city. With an investment of 30 million euros, the works of Barcelona Mar de Ciencia are expected to start in 2026 and finish a year later.
The last facility that integrates this City Council plan to promote the blue economy in the city is the Blue Tech Port, sheds converted into offices for startups by the port, with the design signed by the b720 Fermín Vázquez Arquitectos studio. Next to the Ronda Litoral, on the Sant Bertran dock, the space has just launched a first warehouse, with the forecast of adapting the remaining five by 2027. With an investment of 56 million euros, the works will add a tower and will allow reaching an area of 25,000 square meters with capacity to accommodate between 2,500 and 3,000 employees, a figure similar to that of the World Trade Center (WTC).