Almeida changes the project for the abandoned building next to the Metropolitano to comply with the law: it will no longer have a hotel

More than 15 years of waiting and an unresolved judicial setback in between. On the land surrounding the Metropolitano stadium, conceived for Olympic Games that never happened, the skeleton of the aquatic center remains half-built, intended for Olympic athletes to practice swimming or water polo. The plot is one of those that the City Council of the capital ceded to Atlético de Madrid ―more than 200,000 square meters of public land― for 75 years to build part of what was named the City of Sport. To carry this out, the Madrid City Council approved a special plan that would allow, specifically on that plot of the ruined building, lodging uses. That is, among other buildings, a hotel could be built, one of the initial ideas proposed by the club. Last December, the High Court of Justice of the region (TSJM) thwarted this initiative and overturned the special plan because allowing a hotel “implies a radical transformation of the public purpose of the plot.” The City Council appealed to the Supreme Court. The mayor, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, presented a new project for the area this Tuesday, which no longer includes the controversial hotel, and a municipal spokesperson assures that what has been presented now does comply with current urban planning regulations and does not require a second special plan.

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On the plot, covering about 66,000 square meters, a concert hall with a capacity for 20,000 people is planned, a capacity slightly higher than that of the Movistar Arena, a university campus for higher education and vocational training for more than 2,300 students, run by the private university Alfonso X, and a large GoFit gym, which has been adding centers ―public and private― in the city in recent years, with indoor and outdoor pools. The cost, more than 360 million euros, will be borne, like the execution of the works, by Barsento SLU, a joint venture created in 2024 by Atlético de Madrid, the entertainment company Live Nation, and Oak View Group, a giant in stadium construction.

The judicial dispute surrounding the special plan for the reform of urban uses, coupled with the process of awarding the works and their subsequent exploitation, has sparked outright rejection from opposition parties in the Madrid City Council. “The City Council intends to push through a 360-million-euro project on a public plot that should have always been public sports equipment, once again betting on privatization,” criticizes Antonio Giraldo, PSOE’s spokesperson for Urban Planning in the capital, while expressing his doubts about the legal viability of the operation. “We have serious doubts about the legality of the operation: the special plan that allowed these uses was annulled by the TSJM in December. No one has clarified whether an appeal has been made to the Supreme Court,” he warns.

In the eyes of Más Madrid, the transformation of the Aquatic Center responds solely to private interests. “What the mayor sells as a cultural and sports space is actually a mega-complex with Madrid’s largest auditorium for concerts, dining areas, and a private university campus. Let no one be fooled, the general interest here is a pretext for the usual suspects to get even richer, in this case, an American investment fund,” condemns councilor Mar Barberán, while reviewing other Almeida projects that justice halted: “This is not an isolated case; it already happened with the Bernabéu’s macroparking, which justice overturned, it already happened with the plots of Atlético’s Sports City, annulled by the courts, and now the mayor is back to his old tricks with the same scheme: a red carpet for big clubs and big companies, and the city’s heritage as a bargaining chip.”

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The mayor has not specified when the works for this mega-complex will begin, only stating that they will do so “soon” and will extend until the end of 2030, when the pavilion, the private university, and the sports center will join the City of Sport, also under construction and projected by the club. In fact, everything proposed this Tuesday by Almeida stems from a private initiative by Atlético, presented through Barsento in January 2025, for the construction and exploitation of the area. “It was urgent to provide a solution for the aquatic center; the solution came from Miguel Ángel [majority shareholder of Atlético de Madrid],” the mayor stated during the project presentation.

The City Council admitted this initiative, considering that it complied with regulations and the general interest, and set the administrative machinery in motion. It was , so that alternatives could be presented during the public information period. According to the Madrid City Council, none were presented, and the Works and Equipment area prepared the tender documents to put the project out to public bid. The deadline for submitting offers ended on January 30, and “it has resulted in the awarding of the concession, which will last 75 years” to the joint venture created by the club, which will pay a total fee of more than 141 million euros.

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