Thirty years of urban planning serial in the north of Madrid

Madrid"You know that saying that says: 'There is a lot to say about promising and fulfilling'? Well, here, the much to say "It's been going on for a long time." That's the first thing a resident of the Madrid neighbourhood of Fuencarral, in the north of Madrid, answers when asked about the Chamartín operation, now renamed Madrid Nuevo Norte. He says this because he has been hearing about this macro-urban project for no less than 32 years, which seeks to reconvert up to 2.3 million businesses and finances in the style of the City of London. skyline with the tallest tower in Spain and Europe.

"Go straight ahead and you'll get there," says the resident of Fuencarral. Narrow streets wind their way through old blocks of flats and low houses – a legacy of working-class families from other parts of Spain who migrated to the outskirts of the Spanish capital – and end up at the hermitage of San Roque. From here you can see metres and metres of wasteland degraded by the passage of time, with accumulated rubbish, and where the green of the grass has appeared with the arrival of good weather. It is also a land divided vertically by the train tracks that leave Chamartín station, a few kilometres further south. The tracks separate Fuencarral from the neighbourhood of Las Tablas, from where you can see La Vela, the iconic headquarters of BBVA in Madrid.

The landscape is also at the foot of the so-called Cuatro Torres, a symbol of financial and business Madrid. The skyscrapers rise on the same side of Fuencarral, but also a little further south, coinciding with the end of Paseo de la Castellana and next to, precisely, Chamartín train station. And that is where it all begins. Or rather the opposite: where nothing ever starts.

The Chamartín station gives its name to the urban development macro-project. In fact, it is the starting point of the affected area. It extends 5.6 kilometres in a northerly direction, until it touches the M-40 highway, and forms, as can be seen in the map accompanying this article, a kind of wedge. It is the area in which Madrid Nuevo Norte is currently planned and where the wastelands of Fuencarral are included. The promoters, in addition to boasting about the fact that they are facing one of the "largest urban development projects in Europe", also defend that it represents the "culmination of the city of Madrid at the northern end [...] through the construction of a neighbourhood that will become a benchmark in terms of sustainability, innovation and design". All of this will involve an investment of 11,000 million euros.

However, some urban planners, architects and social and environmental organisations, such as Ecologistas en Acción, but also neighbourhood organisations, have been denying this maxim for years. "A geography of privilege is created," sums up architect and urban planner Félix Arias. Also a member of Plataforma Zona Norte, a group of residents in the north of Madrid, he regrets how the value of the area is increased by exclusive buildings and services.

What now indicates that more than three decades later the macro-project is "irreversible", as the promoters have recently assured, is that Adif and Renfe - original owners of the bulk of the affected land - have just formalized before a notary the sale in favor of Crea Madrid Nuevo Norte (CMNN), the promoter of the project. After overcoming this obstacle, it is hoped that the first stone will be laid in the first quarter of 2026, the company explains to ARA.

Of the millions of square meters affected, 60% of the buildable areas will be dedicated to the business area and, therefore, to tertiary use: "state-of-the-art" office buildings or prime. However, the project also includes the construction of housing (35% of the building space), part of which will be public; shops; services such as health centres and schools, and green areas. In addition, part of the railway tracks, for example, those that divide Fuencarral and Las Tablas, are to be buried and pedestrian walkways to end the separation between neighbourhoods to be built.

The shadow of speculation

But neither these figures nor the current promoters of the macro-urban project – BBVA (76%), Merlin Properties (14%) and Construcciones Grupo San José (10%) – are the same as those who were behind the initial plans in 1993. The comings and goings since then have been as many as the legal proceedings opened around the operation: if the child cries for one reason it is because it was born under the shadow of speculation.

It all began with the idea of developing the Chamartín railway site, where a large part of the land was owned by Renfe and Adif and, therefore, by the Ministry of Transport. One of the great battles, then, has been its sale (it was public land), but also its reclassification (the urban planning of the time did not take into account residential use, much less tertiary use). The first tender to take over the project was won by the DUCH consortium, formed by the public bank Argentaria and the construction company Grupo San José, together with some minority partners. "At that time, there was talk of 62 hectares [620,000 square metres]," recalls architect and member of Ecologistas en Acción Luis Suárez.

The project, which was born with the excuse of revitalizing the area near the train station, quickly escalated to the point that, from one day to the next, there was talk of an impact of more than 3 million square meters. "It already shows that there was something strange behind it," adds Suárez. The process unleashed a give and take between the interested parties: the public administrations involved (from the Ministry of Transport to the City Council and the Community of Madrid) and the private agents (in 1999 BBVA absorbed Argentaria and went on to control the private consortium, until today). Neighbors and associations took the macro project to court because they considered it a "jackpot In fact, one of the appeals against the operation remained alive until February 2023, when the courts archived it. Entities and residents have used this expression because they claim that the operation represents "quick and easy" profits for the developers. According to data to which the ARA has had access. In 2015 it climbed to 2,149 million euros, the concessionaire paid 1,051 million. North. That consortium would replace DUCH and was born with the aim of making an even greater remodeling of the area. The courts, this time, did stop it.

That, added to the arrival of Manuela Carmena (Ahora Madrid) to the City Council in 2015, was seen as a turning point by those more critical voices. Initially the project was stopped, but it was an impasse that did not last long. The council led by Carmena resumed the idea, although opening spaces for citizen participation that, over time, ended up being closed, some entities denounce. "The city council of change knelt before the financial, extractive and lucrative vision of the promoters," denounces Suárez. The mayor of Ara Madrid almost finished the work. "A city that does not have a heart of services, offices and work like the one this project can have is a city that lives with its back to the future," said the mayor. Although she tried to have the project approved in an extraordinary plenary session before the 2019 elections, it did not arrive in time and it was the subsequent government of PP and Ciutadans who put the bow tie on it. Thus was born the current Madrid Nuevo Norte.

Little social opposition?

"It has been a fight against excessive publicity and no, we have not achieved a real mobilization against the project," says Arias in a conversation with ARA. For his part, Suárez believes that only the residents of the affected areas have been aware of the impact of the project. "In general, it is difficult for urban planning to move people's consciences," adds the architect. Added to this is a fairly unanimous consensus in the sense that this northern area needs remodeling. "Everyone is interested in transforming unused land that is deteriorating. The question was not whether we were doing something, but what," laments the member of Ecologistas en Acción. These groups complain, for example, about the lack of public facilities or protected housing. "We are talking about minimum standards set by law," says Suárez.

They also criticize that exorbitant estimates have been made regarding issues such as the demand for offices prime (one million square metres will be dedicated to it). "We'll see if [the project] undergoes any further mutation," says Arias, who, although he believes that the housing supply may have an outlet, is very sceptical about the business area: "I think that the developers have not reflected on what is happening in the world, especially after the pandemic and the changes in the labour market. These are projections that I doubt." A study by the consultancy firm EY indicated that not all the available offices that currently exist in the Spanish capital will be occupied until 2038.

In the eyes of some entities, the project also raises the specter of gentrification and the sociocultural changes that could be triggered in the surrounding neighbourhoods, especially in the most popular ones, such as Fuencarral. In addition, architects and urban planners also point out that it perpetuates the imbalance between the north of the city, where the highest quality jobs are concentrated and the highest income neighbourhoods have been built, and the south, where employment is more precarious.

Waiting for the first stone

However, it is not yet clear what future awaits Crea Madrid Nuevo Norte, the current developer. According to a report by Crea Madrid Nuevo Norte, FiveDays, BBVA has reportedly asked to find an investment partner for a part of the company. For now, and with everything to do, the company does not see the need for this, although the market suggests that the arrival of a new player would be logical.

In this regard, the Madrid-based urban planner points out that BBVA, as a financial institution, is not dedicated to the construction of housing or its promotion. "It has an asset that will probably be sold, because it is about creating value, finding a buyer and withdrawing," says Arias. When questioned by ARA, sources from the financial institution declined to comment on the information published on the possible sale and assured that they remain interested in the project.

Meanwhile, the question that Eduardo Mangada asked in the article remains unanswered. Chamartin, in the shadow of Kio published in November 1993 in The Country: "When, where, by whom and for whom will 130 billion pesetas be spent on steel and concrete?"