The Executive Council of the Generalitat de Catalunya will approve next Tuesday the declaration of general interest of the new Clínic Health Campus of the University of Barcelona on Avinguda Diagonal, a step that will allow the urban planning processing of one of the pending operations to move the project to the planned area.
The decision comes on land that currently has a designation for sports facilities and which, to host the future campus, will need to change its use. This is the main administrative shift that the Government is now unlocking, along with priority in key permits such as the connection and capacity of the electrical grid.
The Generalitat changes the use of the Diagonal land to build the campus
With the declaration of general interest, the Government will give priority processing to the urban development of the project and to the permits related to energy infrastructure. The objective is to shorten deadlines in a process with several chained administrative phases.
Furthermore, the agreement will ratify the de-allocation of the University of Barcelona's land. This procedure will allow its future acquisition by the Generalitat de Catalunya and clears another of the necessary pieces to implement the new campus on Diagonal.
Albert Dalmau, Minister of the Presidency, framed the decision as a political commitment to avoid administrative delays.
"It is a message to the country, the government will do everything possible so that it does not have to overcome so many bureaucratic obstacles" - Albert Dalmau, Minister of the Presidency, Generalitat de Catalunya
The project for the new UB Clínic Health Campus thus enters a phase in which the timeline will depend not only on the urban transformation of the land, but also on the international tender with which the final design of the complex will be chosen.
The international competition will start in September and will choose the winner in 2028
The call for the international design competition will be published in September, after the prior announcement. From then on, the first phase will serve for teams to submit their applications and prove their technical solvency between September and November.
Then, an elimination stage will begin in which ten teams will present initial proposals until April 2027. This screening will reduce the process to the candidacies with the most options to continue in the decisive phase.
Later, a second stage will narrow the selection down to five teams, which must develop detailed proposals by December 2027. The process seeks to finalize both the architectural solution and the integration of the future campus into the Diagonal Avenue environment.
If the established schedule is met, the winner of the competition will be decided in the first quarter of 2028.