When the first phase of construction is completed in 2026, the site of the former Athens Airport will be unrecognizable.
While the Eero Saarinen-designed East Terminal will remain in place, abandoned hangars and runways will be replaced by a multiuse development — billed as a smart city — twice the size of New York’s Central Park.
Within three years, the 650-acre site along the southeast coast of Athens will feature around 10,000 upmarket beachfront homes and apartments, a Mandarin Oriental hotel, one of Southern Europe’s largest malls, a marina for mega-yachts, a Hard Rock-branded casino, a state-of-the-art sports complex, a private school, cultural and entertainment centers, a sprawling beach and a two-million-square-meter green space slated to be the biggest coastal park in Europe, all overlooking the azure waters of the Saronic Gulf.
This privately-funded project, called the Ellinikon, will, in short, transform the Greek capital.
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At the inaugural event last October, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis described the Ellinikon as “the prologue to a new era for the coast,” noting that it is expected to generate over €14 billion ($15.2 billion) in tax revenue during its 25-year development lifecycle. With the country still getting back on its feet after a decade-long debt crisis, the Ellinikon is being stood up as a symbol of Athens’ revival.
While big construction projects are being pared back in many parts of the world due to rising construction costs, interest rate hikes and labor shortages, Greece is in an unusually strong economic situation. It is benefiting from a rebound in tourism, strong residential and commercial sales and investor optimism about the return to power of business-friendly Mitsotakis, who was just reelected in a general election.
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