High above the sparkling surface of the Athens coastline, the cranes for building the 50-floor luxury tower centrepiece of Greece’s future “smart city” look out over the Saronic Gulf. At their feet, construction machinery stirs up dust. The eight-billion-euro ($8.
5-billion) project financed by private funds is, according to its backers, a symbol of Greece’s renaissance after the years of financial stagnation that saw investors flee the country. Critics, however, see it more as a future “ghetto for the rich”. It is hard to imagine that 10 kilometres (six miles) from the Acropolis, a new city “three times the size of Monaco” will rise from the ground by 2036, according to Odisseas Athanasiou, chief executive of the group Lamda that owns the site.
One of Europe’s largest urban regeneration projects, the Ellinikon initiative features plans for villas, two hotels, shopping centres, a university, a marina and other buildings. It will also feature the Riviera Tower, which would be Athens’s tallest skyscraper when it is completed at the end of 2026. Around 30,000 people are expected to live on the 6.
2-square-kilometre (2.4-square-mile) site on what for decades was Athens’s international airport. – A ‘smart city’ – The former terminal, a listed building since the airport relocated in 2001, is to be converted into an exhibition hall.
During the 2004 Olympic Games, Ellinikon became a sports hub and hosted sports competitions including canoeing and hockey. B.
