There are landmarks that define the skyline of Barcelona and its metropolitan area just as much as the Sagrada Familia or the Torre Glòries, and the Tres Xemeneies de Sant Adrià are, without a doubt, the industrial totem of our coastline. After years of uncertainty and debate over what to do with that concrete behemoth, the plan for its revival now has an official timeline, and the news is that public transportation will be the key player in this transformation.
The Catalan government has confirmed that the Trambesòs will add two new stops to serve what promises to be the new hotspot along the coast. This 1.4-kilometer extension will connect the current Sant Adrià station with the Port of Badalona, crossing Eduard Maristany Avenue. According to projections, construction will begin in 2031 so that we can open these new platforms in the summer of 2033. One of the stops will be called, as could not be otherwise, Tres Xemeneies, and the other will serve as the terminus at the Port of Badalona, definitively integrating this area into the metropolitan network.
A Catalan-style Hollywood and a neighborhood fortified against storms
But the tram is just the tip of the iceberg. The flagship project is Catalunya Media City, a logistics and audiovisual production hub that aims to turn the former turbine plant into a global benchmark. The idea is that by the end of 2028, cameras will be rolling and students from the leading Catalan universities (UB, UPC, UPF, and UAB) will be bringing life to a space that today is pure industrial silence. In fact, next year visitors will be able to experience an immersive exhibition on the site’s labor history to whet their appetite.
The most interesting aspect of the urban design, by architect Enric Batlle, is that it does not ignore the climatic reality. The new neighborhood, which will feature 1,783 homes, has been planned with a 90,000-square-meter park designed to be floodable. In other words, rather than fighting against the water in the event of a storm, the land is designed to absorb it and channel it safely, thereby protecting the residential areas.
The Timeline of the Transformation
Although the audiovisual hub will get underway soon, the neighborhood’s full completion will extend until 2035. The roadmap indicates that in 2027 we will begin to see earthworks for the new streets and that, little by little, what is today an industrial site will fill with offices, green spaces, and residents.
It is a long-term project, the kind that changes a city’s landscape forever. In the meantime, we can only imagine that ride on the Trambesòs, skimming the sea, to go see a movie or simply take a stroll in the shadow of the three most famous towers of the Besòs.
