A new project has been added to the list of new neighborhoods currently under construction in southeast Madrid. The Madrid City Council’s plenary session provisionally approved yesterday the transformation of the site formerly occupied by the Borondo factory in Puente de Vallecas into a new residential area with 1,400 homes, green spaces, and public facilities. The specific amendment to the General Urban Development Plan for the creation of the Tubos Borondo Planning Area is now pending only final approval by the Community of Madrid.
The plot, covering more than 137,000 m², occupies the former La Arboleda industrial park and the site of the precast concrete factory, whose buildings were demolished in 2021. Since then, the land has remained unused, acting as a physical barrier between neighborhoods and major facilities: the South Campus of the Polytechnic University of Madrid, the Infanta Leonor Hospital, and the Palomeras Municipal Sports Center.
A location with transportation access but lacking urban cohesion
The area is bounded by Calle de la Arboleda, the Vicálvaro-Vallecas highway, Avenida de la Albufera, and the Vallecas Polytechnic Campus. Despite being served by more than a dozen EMT Madrid city bus routes and featuring the Vallecas commuter rail station and the Sierra de Guadalupe Metro station, the area suffers from severe urban fragmentation, which the project aims to resolve.
The project includes converting Calle de la Arboleda into a pedestrian street to ensure a safe connection between the University Campus and the town of Vallecas toward the intermodal public transportation hub. Parks and gardens will also be added, as shown in the renderings released by the Madrid City Council.
Affordable housing well above the legal minimum
Of the total 1,400 planned housing units, 35% will be subject to some form of public housing protection, a proportion higher than the legally required minimum of 20%. The development will feature a grid layout with buildings of varying heights, sizes, and shapes.
The initiative is being spearheaded by the Department of Urban Planning, Environment, and Mobility, headed by Borja Carabante, and is part of the Southern Strategy, a municipal program covering the nine southern districts of the city—from La Latina, Carabanchel, Usera, Villaverde, Puente de Vallecas, Villa de Vallecas, Moratalaz, and Vicálvaro to San Blas-Canillejas—with the goal of promoting their urban, economic, and environmental transformation.
The project is part of the DEMO 360 Vallecas Area
The approval of Tubos Borondo represents a concrete step toward the development of the DEMO 360 Vallecas Area, the second such area promoted by the City Council following the one already launched in Madrid Nuevo Norte. The area extends between the A-3, the M-40, the railway network, and Avenida de la Albufera, at the junction of the Puente de Vallecas and Villa de Vallecas districts, and covers a total area—including the Borondo, Santa Luisa, and Vallecas substation sites—of more than 360,000 m².
The project combines two main components: sustainable mobility infrastructure, with improvements to transportation links and new spaces for pedestrians and cyclists; and an urban transformation plan that will include housing, green spaces, public facilities, a research campus, and a student residence.
Regeneration of the area surrounding the Infanta Leonor Hospital
The plan also calls for the regeneration of the area surrounding the Infanta Leonor Hospital through the naturalization of the healthcare facility’s grounds and the creation of the so-called Health Campus. Three large green spaces are proposed: a public park, another park connecting the area to the Metropolitan Forest, and a therapeutic space intended for both patients and residents, with a direct connection to Valdebernardo Park.
The City Council is using the Méndez Álvaro redevelopment as a model to justify the viability of this approach. The buildings must comply with bioclimatic criteria, low-emission standards, and passive architecture.
