The Port of Barcelona’s commitment to innovation has a favorite place: the Sant Bertran dock. Its sheds are going to be remodeled to host the BlueTechPort, a hub that will bring together blue economy companies, which combines sustainability, new technologies and the sea, and which aims to be a leader in Europe. The first phase will open in September in one of the warehouses and the second, which will involve the renovation of the other five that make up the complex, in 2027. The estimated global investment is 50 million euros.
The BlueTechPort started last July with the collaboration of Pier01 by opening a 200 square meter space in the Palau de Mar, on the Dipòsit pier. In recent months, its 30 job positions have been filled with 17 companies, most of them startups that work on aspects as varied as data, artificial intelligence or new materials. The success of this start-up, phase 0 or pilot, has led to the activation of the Sant Bertran project, on which the Port has been working for some time.
The new phase, the first, which includes the participation of the World Trade Center (WTC), involves the incorporation of 1,500 useful square meters. Of this area, 250 square meters will be dedicated to coworking space with thirty spaces. There will be about 900 square meters for corporate activities, intended for larger companies with offices, rooms… And the rest will be for general services (kitchen, dining room, more private places for meetings…). For this purpose, the northernmost warehouse is being adapted.
The first contacts with interested companies have already occurred. It will be at the International Logistics Show (SIL), which will be held between June 5 and 7, where marketing will begin.
“This project is extraordinarily large and goes beyond the port; We want to share it with the City Council, the Generalitat, the universities…”, explained this Wednesday the president of the Port, Lluís Salvadó, in the presentation of the initiative. It will form, he assured, “the blue economy hub of reference in Europe; “We have competitors in the United States and Canada, but there is no other European like it.” And it is right, he added, since “one of the first attributes of the port of Barcelona must be innovation.”
It is about going step by step because the initiative is aimed at a still emerging sector. Offering companies a first warehouse will ensure that the project takes shape for the subsequent expansion, that of the second phase, whose works will begin next year in the other five warehouses. “We do not want to reach 2027 with a blank page,” said Salvadó, aware that, today, these sheds, which total 25,000 square meters, “have dimensions that exceed the potential of the blue economy startup ecosystem.” The forecast is that around 2,500 people can work in the complex.
“The pilot has demonstrated the potential that the BlueTechPort has to boost innovation and the proliferation of pioneering companies,” highlighted Emma Cobos, director of innovation and business strategy at the Port, who highlighted “the opening of a space for these initiatives.” that do not yet exist or are dispersed.” For the WTC, a company with a majority stake in the Port, the project is key. “It means leaving the Barcelona dock for the first time in our 25 years [it has 140,000 square meters there]; We want to open our horizon to continue promoting business and innovation,” said its general director, Carles Anglada.
The remodeling of the sheds involves recovering a disused industrial building from the 60s of the last century for activities that are cutting-edge today. The complex stands out for its six large porticos, two per nave (one per façade) on which the vaulted metal roofs sit. Each ship is 30 meters wide and 48 meters deep. The project, by the firm b720 Fermín Vázquez Arquitectos (author, among other works, of the Mercat dels Encants and the Sagrera station, under construction), will incorporate a tower, which those responsible for the Port already know as the “beacon of innovation “There are also plans to remodel the complex’s surroundings to better integrate them with the neighboring spaces of Port Vell open to the city.
