The Port Vell will accelerate its opening to citizens ahead of the America's Cup

The Port of Barcelona wants to take advantage of the America's Cup celebration to continue opening up to the city. "Barcelona made a leap with the opening of Port Vell with the Olympics, and now the America's Cup must initiate a second phase," stated its president, Lluís Salvadó. To make this possible, a total of 86 million will be invested in the execution of almost twenty actions that will make areas such as the Nova Bocana and the Drassanes dock more accessible. The public contribution will fall to the Barcelona Port Authority (APB) and will be 51 million euros, while the rest will be contributed by infrastructure concessionaires and companies. The works will be carried out in one year to have everything ready for the arrival of the first regattas, scheduled for August 2024. "The goal is to reach the America's Cup with a more updated and organized Port Vell," Salvadó defended.

One of the areas of Port Vell where the most emphasis will be placed in the coming months will be the Nova Bocana, with actions that will add up to an aggregated investment of more than 21 million euros. As explained by the urban management director of Port Vell, David Pino, the development of the Nova Bocana will continue with the rehabilitation of the retaining wall, degraded by storms, and the construction of a promenade and a viewpoint, which will involve the urbanization of more than 10,000 square meters for citizen use. The new viewpoint will include a restaurant and a space where the history of the breakwater will be explained. To connect this area with the urban fabric, a nautical bus service will be created, departing from Portal de la Pau, at the end of La Rambla. The sheds on the Oriental dock will also be rehabilitated, and the breakwater of Sant Sebastià beach will be extended.

Some of the actions planned in this investment plan are directly related to the celebration of the America's Cup, such as the transformation of the old Imax cinemas, which will postpone their demolition for the construction of a new Liceu headquarters and will be transformed into a space to explain what this nautical competition consists of. With an outlay of 4.6 million euros to launch it, the America's Cup House is expected to open in the second quarter of this 2023 and receive 1.5 million people.

Some cinemas that have not been able to delay their demolition have been the Cinesa del Maremagnum, which also closed some time ago. In the space they occupied, the base of the Swiss team will be built, the only one that is already training in Barcelona waters. Very close by, the shopping center itself is also undergoing an update that will be finished next year and will serve to host the Time Out Market gastronomic market.

The last area of the Port Vell that will be updated to host the regattas will be the surroundings of the World Trade Center (WTC). The Drassanes dock will be freed up to install the base of the organizing team, Emirates Team New Zealand, so Baleària's operations will be moved to the Adossat dock. During the preparations for the competition and its celebration, the cruise ships that dock at this pier will also be taken to the southern area of the port. Very close by, the Torre Jaume I has been updated to solve the risk of detachments that its structure had. Likewise, the WTC will reform its public square to facilitate access for Barcelona residents.

Other actions that are being accelerated with the America's Cup are the new fish market, which is expected to be ready in February 2024, and the habilitation of new spaces for the Institut de la Nàutica, which has had to move to house the base of the Italian team and will now be able to concentrate its different headquarters closer. The historic Portal de la Pau building will also be rehabilitated, although it is only planned that its facade can be acted upon and the interior will be left for later. These works take one of the highest allocations, with a budget of 17.3 million euros.

All these interventions are a first phase of a longer-term transformation that the Port of Barcelona wants for the spaces it has closer to the urban fabric. With an eye on 2030, the remodeling of the Espanya dock and the conversion of the Sant Bertran sheds into the Blue Tech Port, a center dedicated to developing new business models for the blue economy, where startups, institutions and corporations will coexist under one roof.