The building is located on the site of the former barracks known as the Casernes de Sant Andreu, between the streets of Fernando Pessoa, Manuel Muñoz and Teresa Boronat and Pg. Marta Mata, in the neighbourhood of Sant Andreu de Palomar. This is the third public housing development in city aimed exclusively at young people. The ground-floor premises will be used for a new municipal nursery school with a capacity for 90 infants.
The homes have been awarded to people on the Barcelona register of applicants for officially protected homes. Out of the 56 flats, 14 have been reserved for local people from the neighbourhood, 5 for single-parent families, 4 are adapted for people with reduced mobility and 2 are for the emergency housing board. The rest have been awarded on a general basis.
The flats have a useful floor space of around 50 square metres, 40 of them with two bedrooms, 16 with one, and 4 adapted. Monthly rents will be between 487 and 510 euros, depending on the surface area of the flat.
The block was built with industrialised techniques and sustainability criteria. They are constructed with prefabricated wooden structures and organised around three inner yards to favour cross-ventilation and natural light. The work started in March 2023 and entailed a municipal investment of 5.2 million euros.
The block brings the number of publicly owned homes built with industrialised methods to 312. A further 40 flats are also being built in Av. Carrilet, plus another 69 at the same Casernes site, increasing the city’s public housing pool further.
Les Casernes: new public housing hub
Les Casernes de Sant Andreu is becoming established as one of the main public housing sites in Barcelona, with more than 500 flats in different stages of development. In February, 152 homes with services for the elderly were handed over, and the largest inclusive cooperative housing project in the Spanish state is also under way here, with 80 flats promoted by the cooperative Sostre Cívic and TEB, plus a further 35 co-housing dwellings by the cooperative La Regadora.
Another 100 rental homes are to be built by Habitatge Metròpolis Barcelona, through an agreement with the Zona Franca Consortium providing new land to continue boosting the public housing pool.