Eight months ahead of the initial schedule. The immense Mareterra project, which will add six hectares to Monaco on the Mediterranean Sea, will be delivered within a year, announced the company Anse du Portier, promoter of this two billion euro project, this Monday.
The small principality of 2 km2 for 39,000 inhabitants has already gained 40 hectares of extension on the sea since the 1950s, but this project launched in 2015 is without equivalent, even in the Middle East, due to seismic and environmental constraints as well as of its depth.
Up to 120,000 euros per square meter
The future luxurious district, located next to the Grimaldi Forum, the elegant convention center of Monaco, is in fact based on an underwater embankment 50 m deep. It includes five buildings (for a total of 130 housing units) and ten villas, in a complex entrusted to the Italian architect Renzo Piano and the Vallode et Pistre firm.
Housing is now well advanced, and almost all sold. If the prices remain confidential, the price per square meter can rise up to 120,000 euros in Monaco. It remains to complete the exterior development, which is intended to be very green, with a seaside promenade, a small port and a park accessible to the public.
“The sea is a new terrain to conquer”
“Mareterra is a real achievement for Monaco,” said Guy-Thomas Levy-Soussan, managing director of Anse du Portier, which brings together private investors such as Bouygues and Monegasque families, in a press release. “The sea is thus a new terrain to conquer but we must not damage it,” he added, hoping that the project will be able to demonstrate “that this is possible” and advance “reflections and good practices in this domain “.
Located between two underwater nature reserves, the site has, for example, recreated new habitats for fauna and flora on the structure, on the rocks and on artificial reefs.