On the southern coast of the Greek capital, the long-awaited plan to rework town’s former airport into Europe’s largest smart city is finally gaining momentum.
After a decade of delays, a vision of the Ellinikon is emerging. The Marina Tower, soon to be Greece’s first skyscraper, begins to rise. The iron skeletons of condominiums are taking shape. Standing on the marina and seeing the Saronic Gulf on one side and the Tower on the opposite, one can imagine town of the longer term, which can have open spaces, sustainable energy sources and luxurious green spaces that Athens currently lacks.
“There was legitimate incredulity in the early days of the project,” Odisseas Athanasiou said in an interview. Athanasiou is chairman of Lamda, the developer behind the multi-use development.
Spanning 6,200 hectares, 20 minutes’ drive outside Athens, Ellinikon will transform each the coast and the land. It’s a project like those typically seen in China or the United Arab Emirates, and it’s an indication of Greece’s post-crisis revival and the resulting investor enthusiasm. The developers expect that when it’s accomplished in 2037, it can increase Greece’s GDP by 2.5 percentage points, create as much as 80,000 latest jobs and generate tax revenues of greater than 10 billion euros. It can be expected to draw a million additional tourists annually, with a alternative of accommodation between a Mandarin Oriental hotel and an integrated casino resort.
Greece’s tourism sector has recovered because the Covid era, with 32 million visitors last yr and 2024 is on the right track to see a record variety of arrivals.
For those that need to stay permanently, 243 units are already on the market, 140 are reserved. Marina Tower apartments, beach villas and condos sold out first, and Lamda announced earlier this month that proceeds from property sales in March last yr totaled €641 million. The majority of buyers were Greek residents and town is predicted to accommodate as much as 20,000 people in around 10,000 apartments over the following 13 years.
Building on the urban planning concept of the 15-minute city, residents of Ellinikon will have the ability to succeed in schools, parks, offices, shops and even the beach in lower than fifteen minutes. Software will probably be installed throughout the complex to observe waste, water and energy services. “It’s a consistently smart city,” Athanasiou said, adding: “We like to call it ‘postcode paradise’.”
The technique of getting Ellinikon off the bottom was not smooth. When Lamda bought the property in 2014, parts of it were affected by the ruins of the previous airport – including abandoned planes – while other parts housed refugees and illegal migrants. The beach was dotted with nightclubs and long-forgotten sports complexes. Delays within the approval process further delayed matters, and the incontrovertible fact that Greece was effectively bankrupt when the project was proposed made it seem even less likely that it could ever come to fruition.
“We had a construction sector in Greece that was at its lowest level in ten years due to the crisis,” explained Athanasiou. “People had left the country and construction companies were no longer as strong as they used to be. Increased construction costs due to the energy crisis following the Ukraine incident exacerbated this situation.”
Although these challenges have eased, Lamda was and continues to be battling a labor shortage. Around 7,000 employees will probably be needed when construction work on the Ellinikon shopping mall begins next yr. Lamda currently employs about 2,000 employees and is in advanced discussions with contractors about importing construction employees from other countries.
