Managing public-private partnerships for urban design and regeneration: Lessons learned from the Hermitage Museum Barcelona odyssey

Abstract

Managing public-private partnerships (PPPs) is a challenging task, especially when multiple stakeholders with diverse natures and objectives must interact. This paper presents key insights and lessons learned from a failed PPP. Our goal is to analyze the dynamics of a specific PPP to understand some of the factors that may explain the failure of a private project aimed at renewing a waterfront, tourist-saturated urban area in Barcelona, Spain. To understand how public and private stakeholders can collaborate, we delve into the complex, drawn-out case of the recently shelved Hermitage Museum Barcelona (HMB) project (2012–2021). This private initiative sought to establish a franchise of the State Hermitage Museum St. Petersburg in the Port of Barcelona. A retrospective case study is developed, drawing on multiple sources of information. We analyze the extent to which value propositions align with motivations and goals of key individual stakeholders. Additionally, we examine how conflict is managed—as well as how some elements contribute to better alignment between value propositions and strategic positions. The key seems to lie in the concept of “stakeholder value proposition” and in identifying champions within each of the project's main stakeholder groups to facilitate the process.