Almost two years after the announcement of the transformation of the Tres Xemeneies of Sant Adrià de Besòs into a large audiovisual, digital and video game hub, the Catalunya Media City, the Government yesterday approved the signing of the agreement between the Department of Culture and the Ministry of the Treasury by which the State transfers 60 million euros to the Generalitat to promote the project. This happens a few days after the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia has admitted the contentious administrative appeal of the Salvem el Litoral platform against the Tres Xemeneies urban plan for processing, because they denounce that they want to convert the area into a large neighborhood with 1,800 homes on the seafront “in a flood zone”, and they estimate that the cultural hub makes up an urban planning operation. The signing of the agreement was one of the agreements that had been pending compliance between the Generalitat and the Spanish Government in the previous legislature.
The 60 million euros, which can be executed annually until 2026, will have to be used for "the first actions to make the complex a reality, such as the contracting and preparation of the project and the works on the Turbines warehouse", where it must be installed training, research and development spaces in the digital and audiovisual field. The building is currently owned by the Generalitat, which has signed an agreement with the town councils of Sant Adrià and Badalona, the Besòs Consortium. At the moment the functional plan is still being drafted.
Apart from the first works in the Tres
The Catalunya Media City is an ambitious public-private initiative to try to transform the old thermal power plant – it operated between 1973 and 2011 –, an inseparable figure from the urban landscape of Besòs, into a world reference in the audiovisual, digital and video game sectors, and at the same time build a new neighborhood. The Generalitat's intention is for it to be finished before 2030, with a total investment of around 450 million euros. In a visit to the facilities a few months ago, President Aragonès classified it as “one of the country's great strategic bets that will allow foreign investment to be attracted to the area, with large international productions, and the extraordinary talent that we have in Catalonia will emerge.” . For the president, “it will allow the country's audiovisual and digital industry to be a driving force at the European level. And do it hand in hand with the promotion of the Catalan language with the creation of audiovisual content in Catalan.” “We will make the iconic image of a thermal power plant become an iconic image of Catalan audiovisuals,” he added.
Promoted by the Ministry of Culture, the hub hopes to bring together the collaboration of the public sector, academic institutions (university, training, research and development), companies and civil society.
The project, which also includes the arrival port of the intercontinental submarine fiber cable, wants to attract the industry with state-of-the-art sets with digital sets, equipment for creation and production, a state-of-the-art data center and even an e-sports stadium. , as well as research and training centers (one of the reasons for installing it near the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya).
Catalan version, here
