David Quirós, the mayor of L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, has used a business event to defend the city's planned biomedical district beside Bellvitge Hospital, arguing that the project should turn long-promised investment into local gains for residents. For people living in Bellvitge and Granvia Sud, the plan matters because it is tied to new research and health facilities, the remodelling of the Granvia corridor and a forecast 500,000 square metres of green space.

Speaking before private-sector representatives, Quirós said L'Hospitalet was already well placed because of its links to Barcelona and Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat Airport. He also pointed to the future development of the biomedical cluster next to Bellvitge Hospital and the planned new Hospital Clínic campus on Barcelona's Diagonal, a separate major hospital project in the metropolitan area that city leaders see as complementary to Bellvitge's health and research activity.

"We are already leaders in healthcare, but with all the resources that will be invested, we will become the world's centre for health and well-being," Quirós said, according to El Periódico.

The project at the centre of that claim is Biopol-Granvia. The Generalitat, the Catalan government, approved the Pla director urbanístic Biopol-Granvia in June 2024, a statutory land-use master plan for the area around Bellvitge. According to the Generalitat, the scheme is designed to expand the biomedical and hospital district while also reorganising roads, public space and development land in southern L'Hospitalet.

Jobs, green space and research facilities tied to the scheme

Official and sector-linked projections attached to the Biopol-Granvia scheme point to a development with effects well beyond the hospital campus. Reporting on the approved plan and related project documents has put the employment forecast at between 48,000 and 50,000 jobs, while the planned green areas total about 500,000 square metres.

  • Up to 50,000 jobs, according to reporting based on the approved planning framework and related project data.
  • About 500,000 square metres of green space in the redevelopment area around Granvia and Bellvitge.
  • Potential annual turnover of €7 billion for the BioClúster de L'Hospitalet, according to Oneconomia reporting by Josep Maria Casas citing project estimates.

The Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute, known as IDIBELL, has previously described the cluster as an attempt to build an innovative health ecosystem centred on personalised medicine. That work sits alongside Bellvitge University Hospital, the Catalan Institute of Oncology and university facilities already based in the area.

More recent project reporting has said the first phase is expected to begin in 2026, and that one early element is a start-up incubator linked to the wider district. Those milestones were described in material published by Barcelona Catalonia, the investment promotion platform behind Studiogenesis.

What residents around Bellvitge and Granvia can track next

For local residents, the most visible part of the plan is likely to be the long-running transformation of Granvia. Separate reporting has linked the district's expansion to the undergrounding of part of the road corridor in L'Hospitalet, a move intended to free land for public space, research buildings and better connections between neighbourhoods.

That means the project is not only about laboratories and company offices. It also affects how Bellvitge and nearby areas are laid out, how people move between the hospital zone and surrounding streets, and what land is reserved for parks and new facilities.

Residents who want to follow the planning process can monitor updates through the Generalitat's published Biopol-Granvia planning approval and the Ajuntament de L'Hospitalet, the city council, which is expected to announce local milestones as works move forward. The clearest date currently in circulation is 2026 for the start of the first development phase.

Quirós did not announce new funding figures or a revised construction timetable in his remarks. His intervention instead amounted to a clear political endorsement of a project the Generalitat formally approved in 2024 and that local backers continue to present as one of the biggest redevelopment schemes in southern L'Hospitalet.

Primary sources: govern.cat. Reported by Source Text Link, Rubén Pacheco, Josep Maria Casas, metropoliabierta.elespanol.com, El Llobregat, Àlex Rebollo, abc.es, Natàlia Vila, studiogenesis, idibell.cat, El Periódico Barcelona.