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The New Charles III Island: A Decision by Summer 2025

by Milena Radoman
What will the entrance to Monaco from Cap d'Ail look like? Will the ‘Ilot Charles-III’, which is the last
land from the abandoned SNCF grounds to be redeveloped, be home to the Symbiose project and
its waste recycling tower? We'll know the answer in 2025.

Principality. Pedestrians will be able to stroll
around in complete safety, with a separate
cycle lane.” The park will have to wait until
the high-rise buildings are erected. “We had
earmarked the site for high-rise buildings,
including the waste recycling centre, which
was put out to international bid”. But the
Symbiose project is now on hold. Council
representatives fear that the project will be
financially unstable. “The Symbiose project
was presented to us at a much lower cost.
Now it has risen to over 700 million euros”,
explains National Council Vice-President
© Square François Lallemand Architecte/MVRDV back on track. “I hear some people say
Jean-Louis Grinda. The new Minister of
State, Didier Guillaume, is keen to get

that it must be done because it's essential,
and others that it would be a mistake and
foolish”. The Head of Government wants to
work on both scenarios: ‘There will be the
Waste Sorting and Recovery Centre as it
is conceived today, perhaps revisited, and
another alternative of not building the waste
It's the last legacy of what's commonly known This will create a real intersection between sorting plant in Monaco, but elsewhere, if
as the ‘‘SNCF abandoned ground’’. The last Avenue Pasteur and Fontvieille between that is legally possible”, he told the press.
piece of land freed up when railway was put Cap-d'Ail and the Pasteur Island, and above A decision is expected before the summer
underground in 1999. Located on the edge of all “it will provide the first city-park in the of 2025.
Cap d'Ail, the area is strategically important.
The government plans to build a base there,
the cost of which is estimated at around
€800 million in the three-year public facilities
plan for 2024-2025-2026. The purpose of
this infrastructure is to ‘‘house logistics
functions that do not exist in Monaco or
that are currently visible to residents and
therefore have a significant footprint’’, Céline
Caron-Dagioni, Minister of Public Works, the
Environment and Urban Development, told
Monaco-Matin this summer.
The planned underground facilities include
a 4,000 m² urban distribution centre (i.e. a
freight area for receiving delivery lorries), a
2,700 m² waste collection centre, as well as
a 1,300 m² thermal drying area for sludge
and an urban heating/cooling plant. "This
will be Monaco's powerhouse" in the words © Square François Lallemand Architecte/MVRDV
of François Lallemand. The town-planning
architect's brief was to design “an urban link Vue donnant accès au cimetière depuis l’îlot Charles III. L’un des enjeux était de créer une belle entrée de ville pour la
Principauté avec pourquoi pas un immeuble emblématique et une signature architecturale.
to connect the Fontvieille district, which was View fgiving access to the cimetary from the Charles III island. One of the challenges was to create an attractive entrance to the
made remote by the railway line”. Principality, perhaps with an emblematic building and an architectural statement.

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