After Sophia Antipolis in the early 70s, forty years later, the official journal has just published the decree concerning the definitive creation of the National Interest Operation Ecovallรฉe.
The second gateway of France to the World and the last large available space in the Alpes-Maritimes, extending from the Nice Airport to Plan du Var, will see its first constructions bloom by 2012. These constructions are rather special because they all must meet one imperative: sustainable development. All of this is aimed at building the new economy of the 21st century, giving humanity its rightful place within nature and social cohesion. A place where living, working, and leisure spaces can harmonize, with the goal of creating 30,000 jobs over the next 30 years.
On only 450 hectares of the available 100,000, there will be developments in the transport sector: a multimodal transport hub (Airport, TGV, Bus Station, etc.); in the ecological domain: a large urban park modeled after Central Park, with the creation of a 12th departmental nature park on the banks of the Var, a completely autonomous Grand Stadium, the heart of the future eco-district Nice Mรฉridia, and in the field of education, innovation, and business creation: a large university campus dedicated to sustainable development with an experimental laboratory. All this in order to ultimately host innovative companies.
“Projects initiated by the former municipality and the Canca were halted; they were unsuitable and are being modified,” declared Eric Ciotti, who is in charge of the harmonization of the Nice Mรฉridia dossier. Another redevelopment, the Moulins district, will become a cutting-edge city. As for the National Interest Market (MIN), it will be moved towards La Baronne.
For Christian Estrosi, “we need an architecture worthy of the Palais Massรฉna, which has been shining throughout Nice for 300 years.” In this perspective, an architecture and landscaping competition supervised by the Public Development Establishment (EPA) will be launched in the coming months, so that by 2012 the first constructions can arise and Ecovallรฉe becomes a reference space in Southern Europe and a foundation for the Mediterranean.
This video comes from the Web TV Nice website www.webtvnice.com.
