Construction Progress for 198-Meter Building in Athens within a Smart City Urban Project

Athens. Photo by Miltiadis Fragkidis on Unsplash

21 November 2024 | Athens, Greece

Rising above Athens’s coastline, cranes mark the on-going construction of the Riviera Tower, a 198 meter skyscraper that could become Greece’s tallest building upon completion and is the centerpiece of the Ellinikon project, an €8 billion privately funded “smart city.” Overlooking the Saronic Gulf, the initiative aims to transform Athens’s former international airport into a 6.2-square-kilometer urban hub by 2036, featuring villas, hotels, shopping centers, a marina, and a vast coastal park.

The urban project, Ellinikon, promises advanced technology, sustainability, and luxury living, with 30,000 residents expected to reside there. There are plans for villas, two hotels, shopping centers, a university, a marina and other residential buildings. The Riviera Tower’s apartments are expected to range in pricing from €400,000 to €25 million. Critics have suggested this pricing makes it unaffordable for local residents and also lament the loss of an opportunity to create accessible public green spaces or social housing in a city with limited greenery.

Featured Buildings

Riviera Tower

CTBUH Member Companies
(showing member level)

Buro Happold

RWDI

Lamda Development SA

Foster + Partners

Doka GmbH

Lamda Development, led by CEO Odisseas Athanasiou, secured the site in 2014 for under €1 billion amidst EU-IMF-mandated privatisations. The project will repurpose the former airport terminal as an exhibition hall and redevelop areas abandoned since the 2004 Olympics. Athanasiou defends Ellinikon as a symbol of Greece’s recovery, projecting it will generate €14 billion in taxes and create 80,000 jobs.

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