Last January 24, the Carlos Sainz de La Ermita circuit, a key meeting point for car racing fans in Madrid, announced its imminent closure. The decision has been taken by a project outside the company: the General Urban Development Plan by the Madrid City Council.
In April 2024, the consistory approved the transformation of the Ermita del Santo (Los Cármenes) promenade. It stated that the area has hardly any commercial activity due to the conditions in which the surrounding buildings and facilities are found: “obsolete” constructions, most of them from the 1980s, which “suppose a functional barrier” to connect Madrid Río with the surrounding green areas.
The closure of the automobile attraction is directly related to this initiative: the galleries in which it was located will be replaced by residential buildings. The consistory plans to erect two towers with more than twenty floors each where the phantom shopping center is currently located.
According to the Madrid City Council, the towers will house 548 new homes in total, with the aim of attracting “new residents to the neighborhood, especially young families”. Initially, the project met with a negative response from the residents of Los Cármenes, who organized protests to ensure that the housing would be social or basic-price housing.
With the closure of La Ermita, only one Carlos Sainz circuit will remain in Madrid: the one in Las Rozas, an indoor course with 450 meters of rope and double height. Although the company has not confirmed the creation of a new karting space in the capital, it expresses the desire to do so in the future.