Christian Estrosi presented this Thursday the future developments of the port Lympia. A consultation had been organized with the inhabitants of the district.
A large-scale project. The town hall of Nice presented this Thursday the plans for the requalification of the port Lympia. Carried out after extensive consultation with 850 inhabitants of the district, it provides for numerous developments.
“This unique place in the world with incredible potential had until now an outdated and unsuitable organization”, declared the mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi, on social networks. And to add: “I want to reconnect the port to the city of Nice, to make it a high place of the art of living in Nice, in coherence with our entry into the world heritage of Unesco.”
On the program: more ecological facilities with greenery and a larger place for pedestrians.
A new auction
First of all, 110 trees will be planted on Place Île-de-Beauté where 1150 m2 will be planted. A large installation will be made for pedestrians, so that terraces can be installed, and a new cycle path will be created. Note the maintenance of the taxi rank as well as a fast electric charge for vehicles.
As for the Quai Lunel: the cycle path will be made permanent, a vast pedestrian space created as well as a place for exhibiting works of art, with the aim of making an “open-air museum”. Fishermen will have the right to a new auction in the hope of reviving the sector.
Traffic will be maintained on the Quai des Deux Emmanuels but large Mediterranean trees will be installed and the sidewalk on the port side widened for the installation of terraces. On the quay Entrecasteaux, the hold of the Pointus, these small boats typical of Nice, will benefit from an update.
A parking lot transformed into a garden
Finally, the Quai Infernet car park will be replaced by a garden with restaurants and shops under which 150 additional parking spaces will be available. In the volume under the car park, the Mediterranean pavilion, a cultural, scientific and technological center, should see the light of day.
“The quay will be dedicated to cruise ships of less than 140 meters and to beautiful pleasure craft: all electrically connected for mooring. We are going to strengthen the Port dyke and develop a large pedestrian promenade to the Lighthouse from the quay Rauba Capeu”, specifies Christian Estrosi.
This requalification project accompanies the will of the town hall to change the vocation of the port. Known a few years ago to be the shortest route to Corsica, Corsica Ferries’ rotations have been halved in the space of three years.
“There are people who come from outside, who can go to Savona (in Italy, editor’s note) or Toulon instead. And then there are the Corsicans from Nice who need to have a reduced frequency but a frequency anyway. It is on this basis that we are working today”, explains Christian Estrosi at the microphone of BFM Nice Côte d’Azur.
Within the next two years
Olivier Bettati, in charge of the port mission for the town hall of Nice, ensures that the opinions of the inhabitants, collected during the consultation, were largely listened to to carry out this project.
“If we make a place, if we miss it, we can redo it. When we make a port, it’s for 150 years. You can always find one or two who will find that it’s ‘neither too much nor not enough, nor too big nor too small. But the reality, 80% of requests are found today in this very beautiful layout”, he says to our microphone.
A mixed port company will be created to carry out the work, between the Metropolis and the Chamber of Commerce, the current manager of the port. It is the income from the latter that will finance the construction site, which could begin within the next two years.
—