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Leganés will begin work on the Solagua sports centre this summer
Leganés is preparing to recover one of the places most remembered by several generations of residents. The City Council has awarded the works for the first phase of the future Solagua sports centre, a sports and leisure complex that will begin construction this summer and is scheduled to open in 2028.
The project will be built on the plot located between Francisco Allende Avenue and the M-406, in the area where the historic Solagua swimming pool once stood. That site closed in 2009 and was demolished years later, leaving an emotional and sporting debt to the municipality unresolved for a long time.
The new facility will cover around 38,000 square metres and aims to become one of the major sporting landmarks of southern Madrid. The first phase will include three outdoor summer pools, one with waves, another for children, and a sunbathing area for the hottest months.
It will also include a 7,000-square-metre building with two indoor pools, a gym, spa, jacuzzi, sauna, Turkish bath, two rooms for guided activities, a spinning room and other services linked to sport and wellbeing.
The planned investment for this first phase amounts to 10.65 million euros. According to the municipal timetable, machinery could begin work between late July and August, with a 24-month execution period.
That means residents will still have to wait. If the timetable is met, the first areas of the complex will not open until 2028, although the start of the works represents the clearest step so far towards returning activity to a space that had for years been associated with promises and pending projects.
The new Solagua will also include a 1,000-square-metre hospitality area and a car park with 145 spaces. These services seek to facilitate the site’s daily use and turn it into a place to spend time, not just somewhere to go to swim or train.
The City Council considers this project one of the largest recent investments in Leganés and presents it as a way of expanding the city’s sporting and leisure offering. The idea is for the complex to serve both families in summer and users seeking indoor facilities throughout the year.
When the first phase is complete, the Council plans to continue expanding the site with new sporting facilities. Options to be studied include tennis courts, football pitches and other spaces, although this second stage will be specified later depending on users’ needs and demands.
The recovery of Solagua also carries symbolic weight. It is not only about building new pools, but about putting a place back into use that many residents associated with summers, childhood and municipal life. For years, the plot was the visible reminder of a facility that disappeared without an immediate replacement.
Leganés will gain a substantial facility, but the challenge will be to ensure that the future complex is accessible, useful and well connected to the surrounding neighbourhoods. If the project moves forward as planned, Solagua will cease to be a pool lost in local memory and become one of the new sports centres of the metropolitan south.