Lorraine Williamson
The San Sebastián biotech hub now planned for Illunbe begins with a demolition story most locals know too well: big promises, a fast fade, then years of silence.
The leisure complex opened in 1998 with clubs, bars, and cinemas, but by 2012, it had become an architectural dead-end. This week, excavators finished what politics and investors couldn’t: clearing the site for a fresh use.
What’s being built on the Illunbe plot
The plan is a 64,000-square-metre innovation campus beside the bullring and close to Anoeta, designed for companies that need more than desks and meeting rooms. Developers say it will include secure, high-spec laboratories built to GMP standards, alongside offices, coworking areas, conference spaces, and “talent” accommodation for incoming staff.
The project is branded Sokai Hub Gipuzkoa and is being led by Columbus Venture Partners alongside property investment manager Quercus Investments. Promoters say it’s aimed at life sciences first, but also expects firms working in AI, quantum technologies, and advanced services to take space.
The timelines and the money
El País reports the campus is expected to start operating in the first quarter of 2027, with the wider site fully developed about a year later. The same report puts the investment at around €90 million for San Sebastián, within a broader private programme of roughly €100 million that also includes smaller plans for Madrid and Granada.
That pace matters because the Basque tech park network has been running short on room. One reason Illunbe suddenly looks attractive is the pressure on nearby Miramón: El País cites saturation levels that leave little space for expanding firms.
Why the Basque institutions are leaning in
Illunbe is also an expansion play for Parke (Basque Country Technology Park). Parke has described the Illunbe deal as a way to add more than 28,500 m² of buildable area to Campus Donostia and relieve near-maximum occupancy, while supporting a public–private push to position Donostia as a bioscience and biomedicine reference point.
Cadena SER reports Parke acquired the plot from the city for €9.5 million, with buildability figures matching Parke’s own outline.
The hard part: filling labs, not pouring concrete
Illunbe has form as a “nearly” story, and the biggest risk is familiar: shiny new space without enough anchor tenants. Promoters insist they are already in commercial talks and want companies that will stay long enough to build local capacity, not just incubate and sell.
Competition is also real. Across Europe, established clusters already win talent and capital by default, because they offer density: specialist suppliers, experienced operators, serial founders, and investors who don’t need convincing. If San Sebastián wants to be more than a beautiful address, it will have to sell what those places can’t: a fast route to scale inside a region that’s already strong in research collaboration.
Fake medical prescription organisation dismantled
How it fits into Europe’s bigger health-tech push
This timing lands neatly with Brussels’ renewed focus on medicines security. In March 2025, the European Commission proposed a Critical Medicines Act aimed at improving availability, supply, and production of critical medicines within the EU — in other words, reducing vulnerability when supply chains fail.
A site built for regulated life-sciences work is, at least on paper, the kind of infrastructure Europe says it wants more of: closer to home, easier to supervise, and better connected to universities and hospitals than distant contract manufacturing.
A bet on “sticky” jobs, not a quick win
If the campus works, the prize is not just ribbon-cutting and headline numbers. It’s the quieter outcome: technicians, quality-control specialists, lab managers, and engineers building careers locally, and companies choosing to expand in Gipuzkoa rather than relocate once the funding round is done.
Illunbe’s first life was built on leisure spending. Its second is being built on the idea that knowledge economies don’t flourish on charm alone — they need space, certainty and a reason for firms to put down roots. San Sebastián is finally offering the space. The next two years will show whether it can also secure the tenants.
Sources: