Work has begun in Venice
Montesyndial compound in the southern part of Porto Marghera. Perhaps 1 million teu will pass over the quay walls annually soon in a zone where industrial plants previously polluted the lagoon. A EUR 428 million project has overcome its first hurdle. The undertaking is expected to add a new dimension to the port of Venice’s box handling.
The port of Venice has the luxury of being able to make use of a disused industrial area that covers a total of around 90 ha and offers a continuous quay frontage of 1,600 m – enough for the new centre to handle panamax-class ships.
This has led the managers in charge of the facility to project annual traffic of up to 1 million teu. A long process had to be completed before the excavators could roll in, including conducting an environmental impact assessment.
Enhancement through transformation
A three-part approach has been approved. In addition to the first section (marked red on the map), a second area will also be established, which will feature an intermodal platform with two railway tracks linked to the national network. Further inland, areas
to store boxes as well as house service systems will be connected by new roads. The economic framework of the project is estimated at EUR 428 million.
Fulvio Lino Di Blasio, the president of the Autorità di Sistema Portuale del Mare Adriatico Settentrionale (the North Adriatic Sea Port Authority), believes strongly in the new terminal’s prospects.
“The authority has allocated more resources to this undertaking than to any other infrastructure undertaking in the lagoon ports to date,” he said. The intermodal hub “enhances container transport options and a value-adding sector that will serve the economies of Venice and northeastern Italy well,” he said.
Di Blasio underlined the fact that the project is part of the gateway’s overall transformation strategy, whose aim is to regenerate polluted or abandoned land, whilst simultaneously enabling the exploitation of industrial and residential areas close to each other.