Felanitx: Between the Plaça, the Park and Renewal – the village that likes to carry on

Felanitx: Between the Plaça, the Park and Renewal – the village that likes to carry on

A walk with a local shows why tradition and development coexist here

The Plaça d’Espanya in Felanitx is not a postcard motif that only looks beautiful for a day. In the morning there is still the scent of fresh coffee in the air, regulars murmur at the tables of Ca n’Usola, and from the market hall a fishmonger shares his expertise – the man many people here know is a schoolfriend from the neighborhood. This is how the place begins to explain itself: through people, through connections, through memories.

Lucas Froese, 34, is one of those who grew up with such stories. Having moved to Mallorca as a child with his family and raised in Felanitx, he now works as a real estate agent. On the walk through the streets it quickly becomes clear that he does not describe the village from a tourist perspective but from that of a neighbor: he knows the owner of the bar, the woman who helped at the parents’ evening, the operator of the pet supply shop on the way to the sports field and the former tennis coach who now runs an insurance office. These interconnections make Felanitx both small and resilient.

The café Ca n’Usola is more than a bar for Froese: it is a bulletin board that, even after renovation, has not turned into something else. Here you find simple, honest food and the kind of conversations that you only have in places where people meet regularly. Outside, in front of the church Sant Miquel, the steps down to the fountain of Santa Margalida catch the eye – their shape resembles a horseshoe; the story of how the spring was found is one of the anecdotes children here still hear, and on the square plays are performed at Easter for which some families have had the same seats for years.

A few streets away lies the municipal park Sa Torre. Froese remembers colorful summer festivals, a tree under which people gathered, and events that attracted visitors from well beyond the municipal borders. "There used to be big concerts here," he says, naming artists whose names remain in the memories of the older generation. Today the park is a meeting place for families, children and sportspersons – the playground and the football pitch are part of this central open space.

Sports and infrastructure play a role when Felanitx feels like a village with ambitions. The complex on the western edge offers athletics, tennis and padel courts, basketball and football fields as well as a swimming pool and fitness facilities. For young people these are everyday places: scooters to training, waiting together in front of the supermarket, hanging out before lessons start.

In conversation Froese also mentions the downsides: young people often find it difficult to secure suitable financing for their own apartment, while at the same time there is vacant housing. At the same time, he observes a market that has moved noticeably in the past twelve months – sales figures have gone up. The coexistence of demand, empty flats and building potential shapes the local debate about development.

A visible sign of this development is the ongoing construction work on the future hospital Felanitx Plans New Long-Term Hospital: Opportunity for Care — or Too Much for the Municipality? and the newly started school building, whose foundation stone was recently laid by Balearic president Marga Prohens New Hospital in Felanitx: Opportunity with a Catch — What Matters Now. Projects like these change the everyday picture: more commuters, different traffic flows, new families looking for a perspective here. The municipality carried out an online survey of around 10,000 inhabitants last year; many of the wishes named now seem to be turning into more concrete measures.

What remains is a place that does not pretend to be something else: streets with familiar faces, bars where the waitresses know how you like your coffee, a park that still holds the memory of big evenings, and plans that change the village in small, often quiet steps. Felanitx therefore appears neither frozen nor hectically modernized – it is a place that moves forward by holding on to its meeting points while also making room for new things.

Whoever wanders through the lanes hears the clatter of cups, the distant calling from the sports field and the occasional engine noise of a scooter. That is the rhythm by which Felanitx lives: familiar, lively, ready to try what comes next.