The City Council aims for 9 million euros from European funds to implement the ‘Benidorm Open Arena’ project, focused on the bullring

Benidorm City Council hopes to obtain 9 million euros from the new call for FEDER Funds: the Local Comprehensive Development Strategy (EDIL). The Local Government Board has approved to participate in this call with the Integrated Action Plan (PAI) ‘Benidorm Open Arena’, which amounts to 15 million euros and which “is made up of three key actions that materialise this transformative vision”, as explained by the mayor, Toni Pérez. The PAI, he has reported, has already been registered and presented on the platform enabled for this purpose.

On the one hand, “the action that we have called ‘Arena Live’, which involves an investment of 10.5 million euros, contemplates the rehabilitation of the bullring and its conversion into a large multifunctional space for cultural, social and sporting activities”. In addition to this, there is the ‘Arena Joven’, with a budget of 3 million euros, “which proposes the creation of a youth centre, conceived as an accessible and multicultural space, integrative, inclusive and dynamic for training, leisure and active participation of the youth population”. And finally, valued at 1.5 million euros, “the ‘Arena Encuentro’ project, to regenerate the urban environment to improve connectivity between the Els Tolls-Salt de l’Aigüa neighbourhood and the city centre, as well as the northern part of the Foietes neighbourhood, through l’Aigüera, thereby also improving accessibility and the quality of public spaces”.

According to the PAI document approved and registered today, the rehabilitation of the bullring “is not limited to its architectural restoration, but rather reconfigures it as a multifunctional and adaptable space”, which will combine “sustainability, aesthetics and accessibility” and which “will consolidate a site capable of evolving and responding to changing needs”. Furthermore, it will become “a bioclimatic refuge within the urban fabric”, and thanks to “intelligent lighting, acoustic and environmental management technologies” light and noise pollution will be minimised “guaranteeing the balance between cultural activity and urban well-being”.

With this project, the bullring will become a cultural epicentre with a stage, a complete backstage, reconfiguration of the stands, loading area, warehouses and hospitality spaces, etc.

The plan also details that the multipurpose youth centre of the ‘Arena Joven’ project will act “as a HUB for innovation, training and entrepreneurship, offering specialised programmes in digital skills, the creative economy and new technologies”, thereby helping to “attract young talent” and foster “collaborative networks between citizens, visitors and professionals”.

Specifically, it will have a multipurpose hall for events and exhibitions; training rooms and workshops for digital skills, entrepreneurship and job guidance; a coworking space; a leisure room that will include video games and board games; a reading and arts area with areas for reading, writing, painting and audiovisual production; and a sports area and cafeteria.

The ‘Arena Encuentro’ includes two high-capacity lifts that will link l’Aigüera Avenue with Austria Street and the bullring, incorporating a platform connected to a pedestrian walkway. In addition, green and rest zones will be created and equipped with LED lighting and a water management system.

The mayor recalled that “in January 2024 we already announced that as soon as a new call for European funds was launched, the first project we were going to recover was the remodelling of the bullring that could not be completed with the EDUSI, for which Benidorm had less execution time than many other municipalities having been selected in the third call”. “Now we are taking that project and reconfiguring it with a more global and integrated vision to meet the needs of the population, especially the young population of Benidorm”, he stressed. Toni Pérez has indicated that “if we are granted the EDI and the European funds we requested arrive, which we hope will be provided, the City Council will use its resources to cover the remaining 6 million euros to complete this ambitious project, with which we will meet some of the specific objectives included in the Urban Agenda approved today in plenary session and which sets out the city we want for the 2030 horizon.”

The deadline for the ‘Benidorm Open Arena’ plan extends until 2029. Thus, if selected, the plan would be put out to tender in 2025. The schedule for the first action, ‘Arena Live’, establishes that during the years 2026 and 2027 the bullring would be fully refurbished; and the interior part of the same would be completed in the following two years. As regards ‘Arena Joven’, it would be addressed from 2027 once the exterior of the bullring has been refurbished. It is expected to be put into operation in 2029. Finally, the ramps and lifts would be executed in 2028.