On the southern coast of the Greek capital, a long-awaited plan to transform the city’s former airport into Europe’s largest smart city is finally gaining momentum.
After a decade of delays, a vision for the Ellinikon emerges. The Marina Tower, soon to be Greece’s first skyscraper, is starting to rise. Iron skeletons of apartments are taking shape. Standing at the marina, overlooking the Saronic Gulf on one side and the tower on the other, it is possible to imagine the future city, which will have the open spaces, renewable energy sources and abundant green spaces that Athens currently lacks.
“There was legitimate disbelief” in the early days of the project, Odisseas Athanasiou said in an interview. Athanasiou is the CEO of Lamda, the developer behind the multifunctional development.
Spread over 6,200 hectares, a 20-minute drive outside Athens, Ellinikon will transform both the coastline and the land. It’s the kind of project you normally see in China or the United Arab Emirates, and a sign of Greece’s post-crisis revival and subsequent investor enthusiasm. Developers predict it will add 2.5 percentage points to Greece’s GDP, create as many as 80,000 new jobs and generate tax revenues of more than 10 billion euros after its completion in 2037. It is also expected to attract an additional million tourists annually, who can choose between a Mandarin Oriental hotel and an integrated casino-resort for their stay.
Greece’s tourism sector has recovered since the Covid era, with 32 million visitors last year and 2024 on track for record arrivals.
For those who want to stay permanently, 243 units have already been put up for sale and 140 have been reserved. The Marina Tower apartments, villas and beachfront apartments were the first to sell out Lamda announced earlier this month that proceeds from the sale of real estate in March last year amounted to €641 million. The majority of buyers are of Greek nationality and the city is expected to house as many as 20,000 people in around 10,000 homes within the next thirteen years.
Using the urban planning concept of the 15-minute city, Ellinikon residents will have access to schools, parks, offices, shops and even the beach in less than fifteen minutes. Software to monitor waste, water and energy services will be distributed throughout the complex. “It’s a smart city from start to finish,” Athanasiou said, adding, “we like to call it ‘Zip Code Paradise.’”
The process of getting Ellinikon off the ground did not go smoothly. When Lamda bought the plot of land in 2014, parts of it were littered with the ruins of the former airport – including abandoned planes – while other parts housed refugees and undocumented migrants. The beach was dotted with entertainment venues and long-forgotten sports facilities. Delays in the permitting process further spiraled things out of control, and the fact that Greece was effectively bankrupt when the project was proposed made it even more unlikely that it would ever get off the ground.
“We had a construction sector in Greece that was at a ten-year low due to the crisis,” Athanasiou explains. “People had left the country and construction companies were no longer as strong as they used to be. Higher construction costs due to the energy crisis following the incident in Ukraine contributed to this situation.”
While these challenges have abated, Lamda still faced a labor shortage. About 7,000 employees will be needed when construction of the Ellinikon shopping center starts next year. Lamda currently has about 2,000 employees and is in advanced discussions with contractors about importing construction workers from other countries.