The Costa Blanca city of Alicante has finally unveiled one of the most anticipated urban development projects of recent decades – a 35,000 sqm city park which will include 1,400 housing units.
On Monday April 13th Spain’s Ministry of Transport and the Alicante City Council finally unveiled the design for the future Parque Central, a key project which aims to redefine the Costa Blanca city.
When it’s complete, the new park will extend from Plaza de la Estrella to Vía Parque, passing through Avenida Fiestas Populares y Tradicionales.
The idea is to create a large public space of parks and gardens between the two neighbourhoods of Benalúa and San Blas, along the old railway tracks, which currently divide them.
According to the plans developed so far, the project will include at least 35,000 square metres of green space. It will also feature new housing developments of around 1,400 units, 30 percent of which will be publicly subsidised.
The project is also linked to the future intermodal station, planed as a hub integrating trains, trams, buses, and taxis in a single space, redesigning a total of 469,000 square metres.
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Minister Óscar Puente, Mayor Luis Barcala, and president of the Valencian regional government, Juanfran Pérez Llorca, oversaw the ribbon-cutting ceremony on Monday.
The presentation was met with high expectation as it had already been postponed twice, once by governing Popular Party (PP) and once due to the Adamuz train crash.
“For over thirty years, the people of Alicante have had to live with that railway yard that splits the city in two,” Puente said, adding that “what is today an urban scar will become the green lung that Alicante deserves”.
The park, he said, will be “the result of years of technical work, dialogue between administrations and patience on the part of the city’s residents”.
Local media reports that a large group of local residents gathered at the event remain, however, have their doubts.
“They’re tricking us again,” said Vicente Alcaraz, spokesperson for the Vecindario por un Parque Central platform. “We cannot trust authorities who have been deceiving us for 30 years, and we hope they won’t deceive us for another 30 years,” he added.
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The new park will essentially underground tunnelling of the existing train tracks, which have historically created a divide through the city.
For years, various social and political groups have demanded that the tracks be removed and something be done with this space in order to eliminate the physical separation between the neighbourhoods of San Blas, Alipark, La Florida and Benalúa.
Originally the Ministry of Transport wanted a much less-ambitious project, but in 2024, the Alicante City Council undertook several investigations, in which more than 3,200 residents took part.
The results showed that the city’s citizens prioritise the creation of large green spaces, as well as effective connections between neighbourhoods.
Participants also said they wanted to strengthen the links between the urban centre and natural spaces such as the Rabasa Lagoons.
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The final park design is the result of years of complex negotiations between the Alicante City Council, the local Valencian government, the Ministry of Transport and ADIF, Spain’s railway infrastructure manager.
According to Mayor Luis Barcala, the neighbourhoods of Benalúa and San Blas – between Aguilera Avenue and Bono Guarner Street – will be connected on foot with a “friendly” solution to create a large public space between the two districts without any roads in between.
