While downtown Athens is littered with filthy, graffiti-ridden buildings and thousands of empty storefronts during a crushing seven-year-long economic crisis, the capital’s southern coast is beginning to be transformed into a series of developments worth 10 billion euros ($11.75 billion).
It’s being driven by the Stavros Niarchos Foundational Cultural Center, which turned the operation over to the ruling Radical Left SYRIZA-led coalition which otherwise had been opposed to private developments before agreeing to spur the long-delayed former Hellinikon International Airport into a combination of businesses, luxury hotels and residences, marinas, and green space, although the site had been earmarked to be Europe’s largest urban park.
The strip along the coast, with many public beaches closed off the public by private clubs charging entry, is called Athens’ Riviera and now is in line to become one of the most desirable seafront areas in the Mediterranean.
Other ambitious renovation and reconstruction projects are under way or have been completed, including at Asteria Glyfada, Flisvos Marina, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, Alimos Marina, Asteras Vouliagmeni, Voula beach and Varkiza.
Investors include the Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund (TAIPED), the Public Properties Company SA, the Archbishopric of Athens, municipalities, regional authorities and private individuals., Kathimerini said in a survey.
The southern coast’s potential is undisputed and areas such as Kavouri, Vouliagmeni, Faliro, Kalamaki, Voula, Lagonissi, Glyfada and Saronida are among the most expensive in the Mediterranean.
Plans to construct bicycle lanes, tramlines, overpasses and road tunnels have already been agreed to, or tendered, in areas such as Faliro and Elliniko.
One obstacle is the continuing resistance of some SYRIZA ministers and lawmakers to developing the Hellenikon site, claiming it’s a forest although it’s abandoned concrete tarmacs.
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Source: thenationalherald.com
