News
Sant Antoni will transform its streets with a new large pedestrian area in 2026
Sant Antoni is about to radically change its urban landscape. Barcelona City Council has awarded the works that will turn the area around Plaza Borrell and several streets in the neighbourhood into a large pedestrian area with more vegetation, fewer cars and new spaces designed for daily life.
The scheme will affect more than 13,500 square metres and change the way people move around one of the liveliest areas of the Eixample. The project will eliminate level differences between the carriageway and pavements to create a single-level surface around Comte Borrell and Parlament, following the superilla model that Barcelona has been expanding through different neighbourhoods for years.
Traffic will be greatly reduced and vehicles will no longer be able to cross the new square directly. Circulation will be limited mainly to one of the sides, and Carrer del Parlament will absorb a large part of the permitted movements. For those living in the area, this will mean less noise, fewer cars constantly passing through and a much more open feeling of space for walking or staying.
The refurbishment will also completely change the appearance of the neighbourhood. The new design will include large green areas, flowerbeds, renewed street furniture, and spaces for staying and playing. The aim is for Sant Antoni to gain shade, vegetation and meeting spaces in an area where commercial activity, terraces and neighbourhood life already form part of its everyday identity.
Work will begin during the second quarter of 2026 and will last approximately one year. During that time, there will be major changes to mobility and occasional impacts on some access points in the neighbourhood, as is usual in large-scale urban transformations of this kind.
The intervention is also a renewed commitment by Barcelona to reduce the prominence of cars within the city’s denser neighbourhoods. Superilles seek precisely that: to reclaim public space for pedestrians, local commerce and neighbourhood life in areas historically dominated by traffic.
Sant Antoni has become one of the neighbourhoods where it is easiest to see how Barcelona is changing. Between the market, terraces, pedestrian streets and the growth of green spaces, the neighbourhood has been transforming for years into a city model more oriented towards walking, living together and spending time in public space. The refurbishment of Plaça Borrell accelerates that transition even further.