B:SM to build and manage a new underground car park in the future Ciutadella of Knowledge 

The project, with an investment of €10 million by B:SM, will be located on Floor -2 of the Fish Market complex, which is to house three research centres linked to the Ciutadella of Knowledge

This is the first car park to be designed at origin as a hub for mobility services, in order to provide a response to challenges that include the urban distribution of goods and the charging of electric vehicles    

With a surface area of 7,000 m2, it will also include areas for the safe parking of bicycles and personal mobility vehicles 

Construction work will begin in October 2022, enabling the development of a new car park adapted to the needs of future mobility.

Barcelona de Serveis Municipals (B:SM) is to build and manage a new underground car park on the site of the former Fish Market. The site is delimited by the streets of Wellington, Villena, Ramon Trias Fargas and Avinguda Icària. It currently houses the B:SM Wellington – Zoo car park, which will be replaced by one of the focal areas of the future Ciutadella of Knowledge, formed by a complex of buildings that will house the three main research centres making up this new knowledge hub. 

The construction work is the result of a collaboration agreement signed between Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona City Council and B:SM in 2019. In accordance with this agreement, B:SM will take on the construction project for the underground floor housing the car park and the perimeter walls that delimit the complex.  

The construction work, which will be put out to tender this week, is scheduled to begin in October 2022 and finish in the autumn of 2024. The construction of this infrastructure involves a total investment of €26.6 million, €10 million of which are provided directly by B:SM, while the rest comes from the other operators involved. 

A car park conceived as a hub for mobility services

The new B:SM Ciutadella of Knowledge – Zoo car park is the first one in the B:SM network that has been conceived from the outset as a mobility services hub, a strategy with which B:SM aims to contribute to improving mobility in the city, based on efficient, sustainable and shared solutions that respond to the general public’s new habits. 

With a total surface area of 7,000 m2, the car park has been designed as an almost entirely diaphanous floor, with a minimal presence of columns. The idea is to create flexible areas that can be adapted to the various mobility services that it will be housing.  

The car park will offer parking spaces for cars and motorcycles, using a design that will optimise the available space. It will also have parking spaces fitted with charging points, which will be included in the Endolla Barcelona e-mobility network, promoting the transition towards electric vehicles and reducing the city’s carbon footprint. More specifically, it will have 273 spaces for cars, 70 of which will be fitted with charging points; and 45 spaces for motorcycles, 18 of which will be for electric motorcycles. Following the smart deployment strategy for the e-mobility network, the space will be fitted with a preliminary installation that will make it possible to expand the charging infrastructure in the future. 

The Ciutadella of Knowledge – Zoo car park will include other urban-mobility solutions, such as a space exclusively for the safe parking of bicycles and personal mobility vehicles, as well as car-sharing services. 

Furthermore, it will help to reduce traffic generated by urban goods distribution, thanks to the installation of Click&Collect spaces, where city residents can pick up and return packages, 24 hours a day. The site will also have Delivery Station Points, small storage spaces from which micro-fulfilment operators can deliver goods to the surrounding neighbourhoods. 

A new step in the configuration of the Ciutadella of Knowledge

Initiation of the car park’s construction is a new step towards configuring one of the most important knowledge hubs for the future of the city: the Ciutadella of Knowledge. 

The Fish Market will house three new buildings, for the use of Pompeu Fabra University, the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE, CSIC-UPF) and the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST) respectively. This complex will promote interdisciplinary research and innovation in biomedicine, biodiversity and planetary well-being. The new scientific hub, which is scheduled to become operational at the end of 2025, will reinforce the series of scientific, educational and cultural institutions that are already present in the area around Ciutadella Park, forming a strategic hub for research and innovation concerning planetary well-being.