80% of Lleida merchants surveyed by Pimec foresee a negative or very negative impact from the opening of the Promenade commercial park, which is being built in the Torre Salses area. The data is published by La Mañana. It is the first known measurement of the sector’s mood regarding a project that is moving forward without anyone having put an equivalent figure of opportunity on the table.

The survey is not just any opinion poll. It is promoted by Pimec, the small and medium-sized business association, and it measures exactly those who have something to lose: the city’s proximity retail trade. Eight out of ten responses point in the same direction. The anticipated impact is negative or very negative. There is no room for a benign interpretation.

What the data says and what it does not say

The briefing that serves as the basis for this information includes the survey result and its authorship. It does not detail the technical data sheet: number of respondents, exact date of the fieldwork, nor the margin of error. Nor is there a breakdown by sector, business location, or staff size. What remains is a high, clear, and unnuanced percentage: 80% foresee a negative or very negative impact.

That 80% does not equate to an announced closure or a quantified loss in turnover. It is a forecast. But it is the forecast of those who know their business, their street, and their clientele. When eight out of ten merchants respond in the same direction, the data ceases to be an opinion and becomes a collective mood of the sector.

La Mañana publishes the information. It is the only media outlet that has disseminated it so far. There is no second source that has replicated the result or an official statement that has commented on it.

The public investment that is on the table

While retailers look warily toward Torre Salses, the Generalitat has announced a million-euro investment for the Torreblanca-Quatre Pilans freight station. The figure is reported by La Mañana. It is an investment in freight railway infrastructure, not in retail trade, but it outlines the map of public priorities in the area.

That investment and the 80% coexist in the same city. One is committed public money. The other is a private forecast of damage. No one has yet explained how the two pieces fit together.

The fair looking toward the territory

In parallel, the Fira MOS-Sant Miquel is holding its second edition from September 25 to 27 at Fira de Lleida. According to La Mañana, the event will strengthen the presence of local producers and products from the region and expand gastronomic offerings. This is the other commercial model that exists in the city: local product, direct sales, the fair as a showcase.

The calendar coincidence is no accident. The fair has spent years advocating for a consumption model that does not rely on the large out-of-town commercial park. This year it does so with an expanded edition and more proximity producers on the grounds.

What the data forces us to ask

Pimec’s 80% does not resolve the debate over Promenade. It opens it. Because one thing is for the commercial park to be built and another is for the city to have a plan for existing retail trade. The survey does not say whether that plan exists. It says that eight out of ten merchants do not see it.

The Generalitat has put a million-euro investment for freight on the table. The Lleida City Council has not announced any equivalent measure for proximity retail. Nor has it publicly commented on the result of the Pimec survey.

The data has been published. The question is no longer whether Lleida’s retail sector fears Promenade. The question is what the administration intends to do with an 80% that has already spoken.

The background of the commercial poll and the sample analyzed by Pimec

Delving into the details provided by the business organization, the consultation promoted by Pimec Comerç gathered the perspectives of a total of 157 establishments, covering both the urban core and the rest of the district. Specifically, seventy-two percent of the businesses consulted operate directly within the capital of Segrià, while the remaining twenty-eight percent are located in other towns in the surrounding territory.

When examining the overall sample as a whole, the volume of responses anticipating unfavorable consequences stands at sixty-five point six percent. However, when focusing the analysis strictly on merchants rooted in the city, the percentage of negative or very negative responses rises notably to reach the aforementioned eighty percent. This percentage difference reflects how the urban commercial fabric perceives much more directly the proximity and potential threat of the new commercial complex planned in the Torre Salses sector.

Among the nuances offered by this study, thirty percent of participants in the district as a whole fear a repercussion classified as very negative, and an additional thirty-six percent foresee an effect of a negative nature. In contrast, only twenty-eight percent of respondents state they foresee no remarkable alteration, with a meager six percent being optimists who expect favorable or very favorable consequences for their daily activity.

Altered shopping habits and the fear of losing clientele

The concerns of the local retail sector are not limited solely to an abstract perception of decline, but translate into very concrete fears regarding the daily dynamics of their shops and businesses. Among the main consequences anticipated by business owners, changes in consumer purchasing routines stand out overwhelmingly, a factor pointed out by sixty-nine point four percent of the sample.

Likewise, fifty-nine point nine percent of establishments warn of an evident risk of a drop in their regular customer base. Added to this concern is the widespread fear of a progressive shift of consumption toward the new retail surfaces, affecting in a unique way businesses located outside the capital municipality, in addition to an increase in competitive pressure linked to pricing policies.

On the labor front, uncertainty also leaves its mark on hiring and staffing maintenance forecasts. Although forty-two point nine percent of merchants trust in keeping their current staff intact, thirty-five point one percent acknowledge harboring considerable doubts regarding the future evolution of their employees. On the other hand, fourteen point eight percent are considering scenarios involving staff cuts or permanent closure, compared to a minority five point one percent who trust in expanding their work team.

Strategies of resistance and the urgent demand for institutional support

Facing this horizon marked by uncertainty, the survey shows that four out of ten businesses, representing forty point eight percent, completely lack specific plans to face the new commercial reality looming with the entry into operation of the commercial park. Among those that do contemplate some type of preventive action, the most repeated option—with thirty-two point five percent of preferences—consists of focusing efforts on improving the direct buyer experience at the point of sale.

The sector’s demands toward public administrations are forcefully articulated around several very defined priorities. Eighty-seven point three percent of merchants demand greater institutional backing, accompanied by eighty-six point six percent who advocate for the organization of more recreational activities and events on the streets. Likewise, eighty-six percent of the sample demands tangible improvements in terms of accessibility and parking facilities, while eighty-one point five percent requests institutional campaigns aimed at promoting proximity retail.

Pimec highlights, however, the high predisposition for internal collaboration within the commercial fabric itself. Specifically, ninety-five point five percent of establishments show interest in joining joint actions, and ninety-six percent consider it essential to coordinate the efforts of the various existing commercial associations. The employers’ association’s intention is to transfer these conclusions to the Lleida City Council, the Generalitat of Catalonia, and the Provincial Council to demand extraordinary aid lines that cushion the establishment of the commercial complex.

Strategic parking and the transformation of the old bus station

As a response to the accessibility and parking demands prioritized by the commercial sector, concrete proposals for urban regeneration have been put on the table. On one hand, the business entity has suggested transforming the former bus station located on Saracíbar Street into a large strategic parking lot for the city center, calculating an initial capacity of some four hundred spaces that could be increased in later phases. Engineer Josep Maria Servetó argued in this regard that the existing structure would allow this parking use to be enabled through an affordable economic investment, while simultaneously helping to revitalize surrounding commercial premises in contrast to the more than two thousand free spaces planned at the Torre Salses complex.

On the other hand, the mayor of Lleida, Fèlix Larrosa, has recalled that the municipal government maintains its own plans to expand the underground parking already operating on Blondel Avenue by incorporating about two hundred additional spaces. During his statements on this matter, Larrosa indicated that the current facilities have growth capacity and that the city council has been in contact for months with potential operators to materialize said expansion soon.

Concurrently, the winning project of the competition called by the city council, drafted by Vívid Arquitectura, plans to definitively convert the vacant lot of the old terminal on Saracíbar Street into a modern sports and civic community space. The design contemplates the construction of a new interior building equipped with a gym at the site of the former Sant Bernat restaurant, a multipurpose sports court on the upper floor suitable for track and field events, and two swimming pools located on the ground floor, leaving the locker rooms at the underground level. All of this will be completed with a surrounding green perimeter of more than eighteen hundred square meters and the opening of commercial connections toward Blondel and Madrid avenues.