By: Antoni Nogués i Olive, Lawyer and Town-Planning Technician, Managing Director of ADU, Antoni Rodríguez i Porcel, Architect, Technical Manager of ADU and Jordi Ferrer i Pumareta, Geographer, ADU

The municipal area of l’Hospitalet de Llobregat covers 12.5 km². With a population of 246,000, it is the second most inhabited city in Catalonia and the fourteenth largest municipality in Spain.

The main characteristics of the territory of l’Hospitalet are the fact that it belongs to the Greater Barcelona area, the dense occupation of the urban land by buildings and infrastructure, the lack of available land for housing development and the physical proximity between housing and business. Demographically, l’Hospitalet’s situation is similar to that of all the other municipal areas in Greater Barcelona, i.e., its population has fallen (by approximately 50,000 since 1981) and its current population is ageing (18% of its inhabitants are 65 or over). Resident emigration is linked to the insufficient levels of new housing, which has been very low since the early 1980s (approximately one new home per thousand inhabitants). From the perspective of labor, the city of l’Hospitalet is ranked second in Catalonia in terms of the number of employed people and jobs, despite the relative standstill in this respect in the 1990s. The city’s economy continues the process of increased dependence on services, with jobs in the tertiary sector increasing from 54% (1986) to 64% (1996). It is estimated that there are currently 75,000 jobs in the city.

Town planning in l'Hospitalet is governed by the General Metropolitan Plan (PGM), an overall supramunicipal plan approved in 1976 that also affects 26 other municipal areas in the Barcelona area. Twenty-five years ago, l'Hospitalet was configured as a suburb of Barcelona, which did not provide a clear idea of its potential as a city and certain decisions were made in terms of territorial and socio-economic development on both the local and metropolitan levels that are currently not applicable. L'Hospitalet consequently needed to find its own approach to urban development and in 1997 drew up its L'Hospitalet 2010 Plan, a document that sets out its new guidelines for urban development, which are more in keeping with the 21^st century.

One of the main objectives of the L’Hospitalet 2010 Plan is to convert the Granvia into an emblematic urban thoroughfare capable of becoming a key center for services, business and housing in the metropolitan area, in keeping with its strategic location with regard to the airport and the port, and its role as one of the main access routes to the city of Barcelona. The Granvia is a strategic opportunity that will have an overall impact on the city in three basic areas:

• The morphological structure of the city’s road network.

• The expansion of the services sector and implementation of New Economy activities and services.

• The creation of new residential communities.

The Granvia was designed by Ildefons Cerdà, within his plan for Barcelona’s Eixample district (1859), as the main road running parallel to the sea connecting the Eixample with the areas on either side of the city of Barcelona on the Rivers Besòs and Llobregat. The initial plan was thus to prolong the road beyond the city limits of Barcelona. However, it did not reach the Llobregat until the mid-20^th century. It was first developed as a main city road, but was soon converted into a major highway, which is far from today’s concept of what urban roads should be like.

For more than 50 years the road’s features and role as a superhighway and the PGM’s specifications regarding plans to construct large-scale junction systems (fortunately, not entirely implemented) had the negative effect of creating dead-end pockets on the land adjacent to the Granvia where marginal activities and uses proliferated. At the same time, traffic flows on the Granvia became heavier and heavier until they reached the current average flow of 125,000 vehicles per day.

Today, development is planned for the area around the Granvia. In fact, public and private promoters have studied and evaluated the transformation proposed in the L’Hospitalet 2010 Plan and are in favor of promoting the site. The impetus of this major thoroughfare will contribute considerable synergies to the companies and activities operating in the area because it is one of the few locations in the center of the metropolitan area that can still be developed. Radical action must therefore be taken to transform the Granvia, adapt it to its future uses and improve its appearance to promote the development of the adjacent areas.

As major highway (highway B-17), the Granvia belongs to the Government of Catalonia, which is why active collaboration was agreed upon between l’Hospitalet City Hall and the Catalan Ministry of Territorial Policy and Public Works in the form of a consortium set up to manage the plans and projects drawn up for the transformation.

Due to the large area affected and the potential repercussions, this transformation is a major project that has to be included within a broader territorial transformation involving other town-planning action carried out by l’Hospitalet and the neighboring areas: remodeling Plaça de Cerdà and the area around it, restructuring rail accesses in southern Barcelona to prepare for the high-speed train, covering the RENFE railway lines providing service to Vilanova i la Geltrú and Vilafranca del Penedès, boosting the economy of the Zona Franca and expanding the Port and Airport, etc.

The Agency for Urban Development (ADU) of l’Hospitalet, which is responsible for the town planning in l’Hospitalet, and the Granvia Consortium, a joint body specifically created by the Catalan Government and l’Hospitalet City Hall to carry out and manage the transformation, are the parties responsible for the process. The project’s clients are l’Hospitalet City Hall and the Catalan Government.

The amount initially earmarked for the transformation amounts to approximately €2 billion.

Two different but inseparable and complementary strategies are involved in the transformation of the Granvia: the restructuring of the road system and the development of the areas adjacent to the Granvia.

1. Restructuring the road system

The aim is to change the present dividing highway into an urban avenue that is fully integrated into the city’s everyday life and road system. The conversion involves lowering the level of approximately 2000 meters of the central section of the Granvia (between Carrer de l’Escultura and Carrer de Miguel Hernández), 700 meters of which will be covered. The new road structure will be coordinated with the construction work carried out in Plaça de Cerdà and be consistent with the criteria used for connecting l’Hospitalet with the Barcelona ring-road system built for the 1992 Olympic Games. Pedestrians and vehicles will now be able to cross the highway from north to south, thanks to the parts covered that will be built and the many roundabouts connecting the new side lanes on the level with the existing road system. The roundabouts will distribute surface traffic and include junctions for access to the lower middle section. Although this morphological transformation will call for resizing traffic flows, the proposed arrangement will still be able to handle substantial traffic volumes, so the Granvia can continue to provide large-scale inter-urban mobility in its traditional role as the main access road to Barcelona from the south.

The project includes the construction of a new railway station on the Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya line, with a connection to the future L-9 Metro line. This measure is included in the 2001-2010 Infrastructure Master Plan of the Autoritat del Transport Metropolità (Barcelona Metropolitan Transport Authority) as a prerequisite for improving public-transport connections in the area and progressing toward a model of sustainable mobility. Thus, the transformation of the Granvia forms part of a new model for metropolitan transport as provided for in the Sustainable Mobility Master Plan approved in 2002 by l’Hospitalet City Hall.

Current status:

The Granvia construction project was awarded on 12 October 2002 to UTE (whose partners are FC Construcción, S.A., COPISA and COMAPASA) for an amount of €85,782,528.

• Construction work is planned to start during the second quarter of 2003.

• Construction work is scheduled to take 2 years.

• The anticipated deadline for completion is the second quarter of 2005.

A complex construction program will be put into practice to minimize unavoidable traffic restrictions.

The set of town-planning projects affecting the land adjacent to the new Granvia has been grouped under the name of the Granvia L’Hospitalet Economic District, an operation that will guarantee its overall quality and impact. The fifteen different plans involved cover an area of 164 hectares.

These development projects will provide a wide variety of architectural designs and urban services, in accordance with l’Hospitalet’s increasingly consolidated image as a major city. The aim is to accommodate a wide range of emerging activities: services, leisure, shopping centers, housing (approximately 2000 housing units), hotels (approximately ten new hotels), local and supralocal community services, tertiary and management activities, trade fairs, technological and knowledge-creation activities, convention centers, etc.

Many of these operations have called for modifications to the PGM and the creation of new plans for urban improvement. The projects included in the Granvia L’Hospitalet Economic District are listed in Table 1.

The most important projects are the following:

• Extension to the Barcelona Trade Fair to make it a facility of international importance (currently in the request-for-tender stage). The two first pavilions are in operation, with a constructed area of 71,000 m²; the final net area of exhibition space will be 143,552 m².

• The future Ciutat de la Justícia Courthouse Complex, which will house the law courts of Barcelona and l’Hospitalet. Designed by architect David Chipperfield + b 720 Arquitectura.

• Shopping centers: Granvia 2 (different shops and leisure activities, already operating) and IKEA (under construction), which develop the provisions of Catalonia’s Commercial Facilities Territorial Plan for the city.

• The City Metropolitana, a business and services center promoted by the Zona Franca Consortium, designed by Ateliers Jean Nouvel /J.Ribas G.-J.Ribas F. Arquitectos asociados.

• Porta Llobregat, a hotel complex designed by Richard Rogers Partnership / Alonso-Balaguer i Arquitectes Associats, S.L.

• And, finally, the largest site and the biggest project: the Centre Direccional in the Plaça d’Europa. This project, which organizes the most important part of the whole transformation, is currently under study by the town-planning authorities. It is anticipated that the construction work on the roads and facilities for the new Centre Direccional, which combines services activities with housing, will be completed at the same time as the work done to reorganize the road system around the Granvia (2005).

Table 2 shows the main uses and ceilings of the 15 projects mentioned above.

The Granvia L’Hospitalet Economic District is the third-largest operation in Catalonia in terms of constructed area after the Poblenou 22@ district in Barcelona and the Centre Direccional in Cerdanyola del Vallès. The l’Hospitalet project covers three times the constructed area of the Olympic Village (1992) and also that of the 2004 Forum of Cultures. More than 30,000 jobs are expected to be created.

Current status:

Of the 15 development projects mentioned, final approval has been or is about to be granted on 10, which account for 86% of the total constructed area.

The Granvia L’Hospitalet Economic District will also affect the vacant land on the Pedrosa and Granvia Sud industrial estates (approximately 140,000 m²) by making them more attractive due to their proximity to the new Granvia.

ADU: Avanç d’ordenació urbanística de l’avinguda de la Granvia, dels seus enllaços i dels teixits urbans adjacents, ADU, (approved by the Government Committee of L’Hospitalet City Hall on 28 July 2000), l’Hospitalet de Llobregat, 2000.

ADU: Text refós del pla especial d’ordenació viària de l’avinguda Granvia en el tram comprès entre el carrer de l’Alhambra i el carrer de Can Tries, ADU, (approved by the Barcelona Town-Planning Committee on 18 September 2002), l’Hospitalet de Llobregat, 2000.

Ajuntament de l’Hospitalet –Gabinet de l’Alcaldia: L’H, el districte econòmic de Catalunya, l’Hospitalet de Llobregat, 2002.

Roca Clareda, J. (editor), Clusa, J. i C. Marmolejo: Estudi de la demanda potencial del Districte Econòmic Granvia L’Hospitalet, Ajuntament de l’Hospitalet, ADU, Centre de Política de Sòl i Valoracions de la Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, 2002.

http://www.l-h.es/ajuntament

http://www.consorcigvhospitalet.com/index.htm