The arrival of the America's Cup has been a boost for the city, especially for Port Vell, the chosen location to install the bases of the participating teams. The sporting event has been the excuse to accelerate actions already planned by the Port Authority of Barcelona (APB), with the aim of showing its best face when attendees come to follow the competition. The transformation that the areas open to citizens of the port have undergone, with an investment of 140 million euros, will continue once the regatta passes. Thus, a new action plan will be executed from now until 2030, consisting of about fifty actions with a budget of 250 million euros, of which 45% will be public resources.
"We want more Port Vell," said the president of the Port of Barcelona, Lluís Salvadó. This area of the port consists of 70 hectares and the intention is to gain more surface area. In part, this will be done by opening to the public areas that until now were included in the count but through which one could not walk. This is the case of the Barcelona Pier, where the World Trade Center (WTC) is located, fitted into the map of Port Vell, but with its sides occupied by cruise activity that prevents passage.
There, a new route will be created that will allow walking by the sea. "People want to touch the water," remarked the general director of Port Vell, David Pino. With the works on La Rambla in the background, the first step will be to make accessible this year the side of the Barcelona Pier where the Baleària terminal was located, as well as the space where the North terminal was located, which received its last cruise at the end of last October.
As The New Barcelona Post advanced, this action will be accompanied by the extension of La Rambla to the pier, which will be called La Rambla del Puerto, with a straight walkway that follows the path of the road. Then will come the urbanization of the space now occupied by the South terminal of the Barcelona Pier, with capacity for two medium-sized cruises, with its closure planned for 2026.
In addition to the opening of the Barcelona Dock, the new strategic plan for the Port of Barcelona will reclaim the path towards the old sheds of the Sant Bertran Dock, where a blue economy startup hub will be located, with the first startups settling in at the beginning of the next academic year in the first rehabilitated warehouse and adapting the rest of the warehouses by 2027. "Until now, it was an underoccupied and degraded space. We are going to rehabilitate the sheds and their surroundings to integrate them into the city," Salvadó explained. With the Barcelona and Sant Bertran docks, Port Vell will gain about 15 hectares, reaching a total of 85 hectares.
These will be some of the most visible actions for citizens approaching a coastline that they struggle to feel is their own in the coming years, but not the only ones. Another measure will be the opening of the Fishermen's Dock, where the new fish market can be visited. To facilitate the walk to the renovated facilities, the port plans to launch a ferry that connects the Fishermen's and España docks, separated by a distance of 85 meters, so it is contemplated to incorporate a platform that will move from one side to the other, similar to the boat crossings found on the Ebro River. According to Pino, the forecast is to define the exploitation model between 2025 and 2026, to launch it in 2027. The forgotten Portal de la Pau will also gain prominence, now immersed in a deep rehabilitation, where an interpretation center will be located to explain the history of the port.