Push to the future Clínic and Trueta to eliminate "bureaucratic obstacles"
The Government will declare the two projects of general interest to speed up their procedures
BarcelonaCatalonia is stepping up to move forward two of the country's strategic projects. This Tuesday, in the executive council meeting, the Government will approve the declaration of the future Clinic Campus and the new Health Campus of Girona as projects of general interest. This measure will eliminate bureaucratic hurdles and accelerate the launch of these two health hubs. "It is a message of confidence that the Government will do everything possible to make Trueta and Clinic a reality," stated the Minister of the Presidency, Albert Dalmau.
The declaration of general interest for both initiatives will allow, for example, them to access "priority processing" to obtain permits for connection and capacity to the electrical grid. This issue – which depends on the State – is key in projects like the future campuses of Barcelona and Girona, where health and research facilities coexist and require very high energy capacity. In the case of the Clinic, the new status will also facilitate that the land where the future Campus is to be located will no longer be classified as sports facilities.
In its commitment to streamline the urban planning processes for the future Clinic Campus, the Government will also ratify on Tuesday in the executive council meeting the deselection of the land now owned by the University of Barcelona (UB). In this way, they will cease to be considered public domain assets linked to university services and can be acquired by the Generalitat – which will pay 135.25 million euros to the university – with the aim of dedicating them to the construction of the future hospital and research center.
The keys to the international competition
Beyond the urban planning procedures, however, the future Clínic has taken more steps in recent days. One is the publication of the prior announcement for the international project competition to shape the Campus. A formality that details how the official competition call, scheduled for September, will work and which, according to the Government, will seek to attract architects and engineers "from all over the world." The objective is that the winner – who will have to overcome two elimination rounds and will receive a contract of approximately 134 million euros – will be known during the first quarter of 2028.
As ARA reported, the future Clínic Health Campus - University of Barcelona will also involve the transformation of the upper part of Diagonal. This is a large-scale urban remodeling, within which it is also planned to relaunch the project to radically transform the access to Barcelona via Diagonal, connect the Catalan capital, Esplugues de Llobregat, and l'Hospitalet de Llobregat, and put an end to the escalèxtric that today welcomes the city if arriving from the B-23.
Regarding the future Girona Health Campus – a hospital complex that will replace the current Josep Trueta Hospital –, last Friday Infraestructures.cat definitively awarded the architectural project to the UTE Pinearq, SLP & Brullet de Luna i Associats and SLP & PEGI Engineering, SL, which won the ideas competition. It is the same entity that carried out the Hospital del Mar, the Bellvitge expansion, the Quironsalud Barcelona Hospital, the Doctor Moisès Hospital, and the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park, among other projects.
The project envisages that the future Campus will be organized around a large interior avenue that will act as the main circulation axis, ordering access to different areas, with outdoor squares from end to end. The avenue will connect the different hierarchical accesses to the center through landscaped areas formed by meadows, cool spaces with Mediterranean plantings suitable for the water management that is planned.