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In 1998, the leisure complex was opened with bars, clubs and cinemas. By 2012, however, it was a dead end architecturally. Excavators completed what investors and politicians couldn’t do: clearing the site to be repurposed.
What’s happening on the Illunbe plot?
A 64,000-square metre campus is planned near the bullring, close to Anoeta. It will be designed for companies who need more than just desks and conference rooms. The developers say that it will feature high-spec laboratories, built to GMP standards. It will also include offices, coworking spaces, conference rooms, and accommodation for “talents” who are incoming.
Columbus Venture Partners and Quercus Investments are leading the project, dubbed Sokai Hub Gipuzkoa. It’s first aimed at firms in life sciences but they also expect companies working on AI, quantum technologies and advanced services will take space.
Timeliness and 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.
It is important to keep up the pace because there are not enough spaces in the Basque Tech Park network. 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 Basque institutions are leaning towards each other
Illunbe represents an expansion for Parke. 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.
Filling labs is the hard part, not pouring concrete
Illunbe is a “nearly story” and the greatest risk is familiar: a shiny new space with not enough anchor tenants. The promoters insist that they have already begun commercial negotiations and are looking for companies who will stay in the area long enough to develop local capacity and not just incubate or sell.
There is competition. Established clusters in Europe already attract talent and capital because of their density. They have experienced operators, serial entrepreneurs, and investors that don’t require 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.
What it means for Europe’s health-tech drive
This timing is in line with the renewed focus of Brussels on medicine 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.
The European Union wants to build more sites for life-sciences contract manufacturing, but a site that is built to regulate the work of these companies would be closer to home and easier to monitor, as well as better connected to hospitals and universities.
A bet on “sticky” jobs, not a quick win
If the campus is successful, it’s not only about ribbon cuttings and headline figures. The quieter result is that technicians, quality-control experts, lab managers and engineers build careers in Gipuzkoa, while companies choose to expand there rather than move once the funding round has been completed.
Illunbe began its life as a leisure-based company. 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-year period will determine if it is able to secure tenants.
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