The Barcelona City Council has finalized the project to give new life to the Palau dels Esports on Lleida Street, which has been out of use for more than ten years after its stage as a theater for large-format musicals did not prosper. Within the framework of the REACT Economic Reactivation Conferences, the consistory has announced an investment of 40 million euros to convert this municipal facility into "a new icon of technology and innovation" applied to sport.
In 2021, the Deputy Mayor for Economy, Jaume Collboni, already announced that the Palau dels Esports would host the headquarters of the new Barcelona Sports Hub starting in 2023. Now, however, this date is moving away, since according to the remodeling project, the works will not begin until 2024. According to the city council, the commissioning of the Barcelona Sports Hub will mean the creation of 450 jobs and it is expected that the new Palau dels Esports will receive 200,000 spectators a year.
The idea is that the renovation of this old building located in the Sants-Montjuïc district will allow it to host sporting events and e-sports competitions, offices for startups and the headquarters of the hub. "We want to have the most advanced sports pavilion in all of Europe and the most adapted to changes. We will do it with a testing ground that will be the Estadi Olímpic where the application of all this sports innovation will take place," explained Collboni.
This same year, the city council plans to hold a public tender to select the team of architects who will lead the remodeling. Once the contract has been awarded, between 2023 and 2024 the project will be drafted and the tender for the execution of the works will be launched.
This announcement comes a few days after the city has once again placed itself on the podium of great international events with the signing of the agreement to host the America's Cup in 2024. In addition, from the Catalan capital, the celebration in Catalonia and Aragon of the 2030 Winter Olympic Games is being promoted, a candidacy that this week has been made official by the Spanish Olympic Committee, although at the last minute the Aragonese Government has pulled out. "Sport is Barcelona's DNA and Barcelona cannot be understood without sport. From the point of view of health, from the point of view of cohesion and we also want to give it an economic aspect because sport moves a sector of the economy and must become competitive," said Collboni.
The Palau dels Esports was inaugurated in 1955 on the occasion of the second edition of the Mediterranean Games. After being the scene of thousands of events and sports competitions, the facility designed by Josep Mª Soteras went into decline and in the 90s ended up being used for concerts. In 2000, a further step was taken in this transformation, turning it into the Barcelona Teatre Musical. Now, however, it has been closed for 14 years, as the building did not have the adequate security measures to continue hosting musical shows. This lack of activity has caused the property to deteriorate, making this action necessary to give it a new life.
The Palau dels Esports is listed, which obliges this renovation to respect the original structure of the building. According to the project, 16,699 square meters of sports use will be remodeled, divided into two differentiated areas. On one side, there will be an upper space that will function as a pavilion, with three multi-purpose courts for handball, volleyball or basketball, with a capacity for between 3,700 and 4,100 spectators.
In parallel, in the lower part, an annexed space will be enabled for indoor sports and also transformable into an area to host fairs and conventions. Another significant element of the new palace will be the access hall, which will have a multifunctional use.
The main novelty will be the construction of a new annexed building of 2,100 square meters on the main facade that will be destined for startups and to house the offices of the Barcelona Sports Hub. According to the city council, the renovation will be carried out through the Institut Municipal Barcelona Esports with public-private collaboration.
This project is parallel to the location of an incubator for companies in the Sport Tech segment in the Olympic Stadium, with an area of 1,100 square meters and where emerging companies in this sector will also be able to test and use the facilities. The budget for the creation of the Sport Tech incubator is 2.8 million euros. According to the Barcelona City Council, the economic sector linked to sport generates 2.5% of the city's GDP and employs 50,000 workers.