Presentation to the Press of a Project to Redevelop the Larvotto Beach Resort Area

©Direction de la Communication / Manuel Vitali

Today, Marie-Pierre Gramaglia, Minister of Public Works, the Environment and Urban Development, and Jean Castellini, Minister of Finance and Economy, presented a project to redevelop the Larvotto beach resort area.

Complete refurbishment of this site will make it possible to:

- better protect the beach from rough seas by creating breakwaters between the existing sea walls.  This is less invasive for the environment, and in particular for the Posidonia meadow that is located nearby;

- offer better quality, attractive shops with simple, streamlined contemporary architecture, designed by Renzo Piano, in keeping with the Portier offshore urban extension;

- enlarge the public areas (the beach, upper part and higher part).  The project provides for more than 15,000 m2 of public space on the upper Promenade, with shaded areas, beds of trees, a children's playground and a cycle track more than one kilometre long (0.62 miles).

The project has high environmental aims – energy efficiency for the shops and services areas, low-consumption management of public lighting, the installation of charging stations for electric bicycles, optimised water management, intelligent waste management, photovoltaic pergola and electricity production of around 120 MWH/year, i.e. more than 80% of the site's annual public lighting consumption.  Finally, the upper utility tunnel will be used mainly to house a seawater heat exchanger, which will supply heating and air conditioning for the entire district, including the shops in the beach resort complex.

Work will begin in October 2019.  The beach will be completely closed until June 2020, reopening in July and August.  It will be closed again from September 2020 to June 2021.  The full reopening of the beach and shops is scheduled for the 2021 summer season.  All the improvement work will be completed in early 2022.