The moment of truth for the abandoned shopping center of the Vila Olímpica

BarcelonaThe moment of truth is arriving for the Centre de la Vila. Negotiations between Barcelona City Council and Mercasa –the state-owned company that manages the centre– are entering the final stretch and, as several sources confirm to ARA, an agreement is imminent. This would put an end to one of the most convoluted sagas in the city, which has seen this space in the Vila Olímpica gradually abandoned and deteriorate over the years despite being the main commercial hub of an area with little supply.

In response to a proposal from Junts per Barcelona during Thursday's municipal plenary session, the councillor for the Sant Martí district, David Escudé, already showed himself optimistic about the outcome of the talks. "We are about to find a solution that I believe will be to everyone's liking to repurpose this space," he assured. Several sources consulted by ARA corroborate this optimism, which, they point out, could lead to a public announcement in the coming days.

Negotiations between the City Council and Mercasa have accelerated after, as this newspaper reported in June, the State did not find a buyer for the Centre de la Vila despite putting it up for auction. The fact that no one offered the 18.5 million euros that Mercasa was demanding as a minimum for an asset it has had abandoned for years gave a new opportunity to the capital's local government, which has been negotiating an exit for the shopping centre since 2021 –still with Ada Colau as mayor.

For now, the details of the possible agreement remain unknown. Over the years, on the table of negotiations now steered by the fourth deputy mayor for Economy, Jordi Valls, there have been different options: the purchase of the space by the City Council –whether to keep it permanently or to bring it up to date and then sell it– or its transfer to the local government by Mercasa. In the event of acquiring it, Valls has always remarked that it would be at "the lowest possible cost".

The fact that the June auction was deserted suggests that, in the event of a sale, Mercasa will have to accept a price significantly lower than the 18.5 million euros it was asking for five months ago. A figure that was already, at the time, much lower than the 50 million euros that the state-owned public company brought up the first time the City Council became interested in the shopping centre in 2021, when ERC forced Barcelona en Comú to make a move for the Centre de la Vila in exchange for the budget.

The cost of upgrading the equipment is one of the keys to an operation that the residents of the Vila Olímpica have been demanding for years. In June, Valls assured during the City Council's Economy Commission that the purchase and subsequent renovation of the Centre de la Vila would involve a total investment of around 40 million euros. Mercasa itself admitted in the documentation attached to the auction the poor state of part of the facilities, with underground water leaks in several points of the building; cracks and fissures due to "lack of adequate maintenance", and technical and safety deficiencies in the high-voltage installation. Added to all this is theopen litigation at the centre's parking lot.

A progressive abandonment

The center's problems, however, go beyond the maintenance of the space. Commercial management cannot be considered a success either. The last official figure from Mercasa stated that only 35 of the 83 premises are occupied. The number today is even lower. Taking a walk through the center, it is clear how the empty premises with signs announcing that the space is available are the vast majority. One of the hardest blows to the center was the closure, in the summer of 2023, of the Yelmo Icària cinemas, the great engine that energized it.

Another unknown to solve will be the final destination of the property, what kind of facility will be built there. The City Council had cooled the possibility of converting the Centre de la Vila into a municipal market. "We could study it, but I will say in advance that the first estimates indicate that there is not enough density of neighbors to build a market there," warned Jordi Valls in June.