Barcelona's new CEM La Sagrera municipal sports centre in Sant Andreu is still closed during the city's latest spell of high temperatures, leaving residents without access to the two new outdoor pools the Ajuntament, Barcelona City Council, had said would open in 2025.

The delay matters locally because the facility at Carrer de Bonaventura Gispert, 37-47 was presented as a new neighbourhood sports complex with a main pool measuring 25 x 16.5 metres, a second pool of 16.5 x 6 metres and more than 1,000 square metres of solarium. Instead, the opening has been held up by a tender dispute over the future operator, according to reporting by Tot Barcelona, betevé and L'Exprés de Sant Andreu, and the official timetable now points to the last quarter of 2025.

According to Barcelona d'Infraestructures Municipals (BIMSA), the municipal company managing the works, the project is due for completion in November 2025. Barcelona City Council said when the works began that the new La Sagrera and Espronceda sports centres involved a combined investment of 27 million euros and were expected to open in the last quarter of 2025.

The opening has been delayed by a tender challenge

The hold-up is not down to the heatwave itself but to a conflict over the management contract for the new centre. Betevé reported that the tender process was halted after a complaint by the Associació de Clubs de Natació de Catalunya, and that the Tribunal Català de Contractes del Sector Públic, Catalonia's public sector contracts tribunal, stopped the procedure.

That same report said the tender had been launched in May, with applications open until 7 June, and that the centre had been expected to start operating in September 2025. It also reported that CN Sant Andreu, the current operator of CEM Sant Andreu - la Sagrera, chose not to bid after reviewing the tender conditions.

The District told betevé that, regarding the tender for CEM La Sagrera, it was necessary to wait for the court's ruling and that it was "not closed to modifying it if the tribunal orders this".

One of the objections reported by betevé is financial. The tender requires the future operator to take charge of covering the pools, a step that CN Sant Andreu said would require an investment of 4 million euros. The club argued that this made the project economically unviable for the entity.

The same report also said the planned pool depth of 1.5 metres would not allow water polo, the main sport of the club, which has more than 400 federated athletes and 18 water polo teams.

What the new centre is meant to include

The official City Council project page says CEM La Sagrera will occupy a 3,927 square metre site on three floors at Carrer de Bonaventura Gispert, 37-47, on the border between La Sagrera and the south of Sant Andreu.

  • Two outdoor swimming pools, one 25 x 16.5 metres and one 16.5 x 6 metres
  • A green leisure area of nearly 500 square metres with native vegetation
  • A solarium of more than 1,000 square metres
  • Two padel courts
  • Four rooms for supervised activities
  • A large weights area and a social space with a bar

In a second phase, the Ajuntament said the pools would receive a retractable roof and climate-control system so they could be used all year. L'Exprés de Sant Andreu reported in June 2024 that there was no timetable yet for that second phase, although the first phase was then expected to be delivered by the end of 2025.

For nearby residents, that means the new pools remain unavailable this summer despite the centre having been billed as a key sports facility for the district. Tot Barcelona reported that the building has been finished for months but has still not opened, while the current official BIMSA schedule gives November 2025 as the completion date.

A resident quoted by Tot Barcelona described the situation as frustrating in the middle of the heat, with a new public pool complex visible but still shut to the neighbourhood.

Primary sources: Barcelona City Council, Ayuntamiento de Barcelona, Julien Nicolas. Reported by Source Text Link, bimsa.cat, L'Exprés de Sant Andreu, beteve.cat, Jordi Subirana, cnsantandreu.com, phys.org, euronews.com, link.springer.com, The Associated Press · Posted: Jul 01, 2025 7:39 AM EDT | Last Updated: July 2, 2025, Javier Martín Vide, Tot Barcelona.