Dubai Telegraph - Greece's ambitious 'smart city' by the sea takes shape

EUR -
AED 3.826681
AFN 70.327616
ALL 98.192804
AMD 406.067937
ANG 1.879076
AOA 951.190259
ARS 1045.840133
AUD 1.601828
AWG 1.877897
AZN 1.775245
BAM 1.957546
BBD 2.105077
BDT 124.589901
BGN 1.956284
BHD 0.392592
BIF 3016.094951
BMD 1.041829
BND 1.405287
BOB 7.204528
BRL 6.043693
BSD 1.04263
BTN 88.005286
BWP 14.243906
BYN 3.412124
BYR 20419.848375
BZD 2.101624
CAD 1.456946
CDF 2991.091432
CHF 0.930994
CLF 0.037254
CLP 1027.952249
CNY 7.54601
CNH 7.562783
COP 4605.144632
CRC 531.073558
CUC 1.041829
CUP 27.608468
CVE 110.75048
CZK 25.343745
DJF 185.15426
DKK 7.457312
DOP 62.978972
DZD 139.891631
EGP 51.726992
ERN 15.627435
ETB 128.155793
FJD 2.371151
FKP 0.822333
GBP 0.831468
GEL 2.855018
GGP 0.822333
GHS 16.464915
GIP 0.822333
GMD 73.970229
GNF 8992.026458
GTQ 8.048177
GYD 218.127645
HKD 8.109446
HNL 26.28575
HRK 7.431636
HTG 136.86204
HUF 411.533277
IDR 16610.452733
ILS 3.863061
IMP 0.822333
INR 87.968134
IQD 1365.316903
IRR 43834.955489
ISK 145.523076
JEP 0.822333
JMD 166.09811
JOD 0.738765
JPY 161.242873
KES 134.920816
KGS 90.122166
KHR 4220.449639
KMF 492.268155
KPW 937.645704
KRW 1463.259646
KWD 0.320727
KYD 0.868887
KZT 520.591707
LAK 22878.565176
LBP 93347.878651
LKR 303.450587
LRD 187.529583
LSL 18.888757
LTL 3.076251
LVL 0.630192
LYD 5.089375
MAD 10.49591
MDL 19.017231
MGA 4865.341785
MKD 61.54739
MMK 3383.819949
MNT 3540.134882
MOP 8.359474
MRU 41.574227
MUR 48.810083
MVR 16.10707
MWK 1807.573672
MXN 21.281613
MYR 4.654932
MZN 66.583684
NAD 18.888753
NGN 1767.675143
NIO 38.287608
NOK 11.531328
NPR 140.808938
NZD 1.78585
OMR 0.401107
PAB 1.042655
PEN 3.952739
PGK 4.194144
PHP 61.404399
PKR 289.423952
PLN 4.338074
PYG 8139.257775
QAR 3.792783
RON 4.976404
RSD 117.038068
RUB 108.671879
RWF 1427.305728
SAR 3.911717
SBD 8.734231
SCR 14.879628
SDG 626.663972
SEK 11.501974
SGD 1.402827
SHP 0.822333
SLE 23.68116
SLL 21846.638123
SOS 595.409088
SRD 36.978718
STD 21563.75683
SVC 9.123047
SYP 2617.626467
SZL 18.888745
THB 35.91223
TJS 11.103861
TMT 3.646401
TND 3.313541
TOP 2.440072
TRY 36.018972
TTD 7.081314
TWD 33.946439
TZS 2771.265486
UAH 43.133048
UGX 3852.435216
USD 1.041829
UYU 44.339112
UZS 13366.666402
VES 48.506662
VND 26482.251319
VUV 123.688032
WST 2.90836
XAF 656.558208
XAG 0.033274
XAU 0.000384
XCD 2.815595
XDR 0.793126
XOF 650.625955
XPF 119.331742
YER 260.379151
ZAR 18.862746
ZMK 9377.71492
ZMW 28.802098
ZWL 335.468513
  • BCC

    3.4200

    143.78

    +2.38%

  • SCS

    0.2300

    13.27

    +1.73%

  • GSK

    0.2600

    33.96

    +0.77%

  • CMSD

    0.0150

    24.46

    +0.06%

  • NGG

    1.0296

    63.11

    +1.63%

  • RIO

    -0.2200

    62.35

    -0.35%

  • CMSC

    0.0320

    24.672

    +0.13%

  • AZN

    1.3700

    65.63

    +2.09%

  • RBGPF

    59.2400

    59.24

    +100%

  • BTI

    0.4000

    37.38

    +1.07%

  • BP

    0.2000

    29.72

    +0.67%

  • BCE

    0.0900

    26.77

    +0.34%

  • JRI

    -0.0200

    13.21

    -0.15%

  • RELX

    0.9900

    46.75

    +2.12%

  • RYCEF

    -0.0100

    6.79

    -0.15%

  • VOD

    0.1323

    8.73

    +1.52%

Greece's ambitious 'smart city' by the sea takes shape
Greece's ambitious 'smart city' by the sea takes shape / Photo: Aris MESSINIS - AFP

Greece's ambitious 'smart city' by the sea takes shape

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.

Text size:

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.

But the facilities were subsequently abandoned, and then came the financial crisis, which hit the Greeks hard.

Solidarity groups created a self-managed garden, a community grocery shop and a free medical centre at Ellinikon, to make up for the shortcomings of a virtually bankrupt state.

Refugees were also temporarily housed in the derelict stadiums during the migrant crisis of 2015.

Amid the wave of privatisations imposed by the country's EU-IMF creditors, Athens was forced to sell Ellinikon.

Lamda, a holding company specialising in property development, investment and management, won the bid in 2014 for less than a billion euros.

The company is listed on the stock exchange and majority-owned by Greek tycoon Spiros Latsis.

Lamda CEO Athanasiou says the company is building "the largest coastal park in the world", with a third of the surface area reserved for green areas accessible to all.

Ellinikon will be a "smart city" with advanced technological solutions, said other project managers who escorted an AFP team in a mini-bus through the huge construction site.

- An 'offshore colony' -

"We're building from scratch, which is a major advantage," Athanasiou said in front of a huge model of the project.

"Cities like Singapore, Copenhagen and Amsterdam have done incredible things in terms of technology. But they have had to adapt what they have developed to an existing infrastructure," he said.

In total, the park will have 8,000 to 9,000 homes.

The most luxurious apartments in the Riviera Tower can cost up to 25 million euros, Athanasiou said.

The least expensive will sell for around 400,000 euros, a price entirely unaffordable for many Athenians, critics say.

"This is not a real estate development project, it's an 'offshore' colony," said Nikos Belavilas, director of the urban environment laboratory at the National Technical University of Athens.

"We will have a gated community isolated from the city, with skyscrapers and casinos for the oil-rich," he said, at a time when Athens is more in need of social or student housing.

The concrete-clad capital, with its jumbled streets that have grown out of control, is cruelly lacking in green areas.

Ellinikon, with its parks and beaches, represented "an opportunity to have a large urban green space", Belavilas said.

- 'Dire' -

It could have become an Athenian Tempelhof, he said, referring to the former West Berlin airport which was transformed into a huge park open to all in the centre of the German capital, he said.

The Ellinikon project is "dire on several levels", especially in terms of the "macro-economic management of the country", one Athenian architect said on condition of anonymity.

Other Greeks complain that the state simply flogged off the site.

Athanasiou counters that when the privatisation took place "we were the only ones to respond to the call for tenders".

He said the project would "strengthen the country's credibility abroad, which was damaged during the years of crisis".

Up to 80,000 jobs will be created and the Greek state will reap more than 14 billion euros in tax revenue once the project is completed, he said.

T.Jamil--DT