End-of-year Review for the Anse du Portier Project

The end of 2019 sees the completion of yet another important stage in the Principality’s seafront urbanization project. After the installation of the last caisson in July, the embankment phase, which makes up the base of the future Eco-quartier, has just been completed.

The future Eco-quartier will expand the Principality by 6 hectares and will be a new home for public spaces, businesses and housing.  This year was important for the construction site, which has been developing since the arrival of the first caisson in 2018.  

Christophe Hirsinger, Director of Major Projects At Bouygues TP,  believes that it’s been a very spectacular year. Only one year ago, the first caisson was installed, which was an important step. Since then, the entire belt of caissons has been finished and installed.  The year’s big project was to create the embankment, which didn’t exist.  Now, the rest of the quartier can come to fruition. 

The extension was not hindered by recent severe weather over the past few months.  The embankment and the filling in of the basin was completed nonetheless.  

Dry quarry materials were brought in from two production sites: in Italy, in Piombino and in Marseilles.  Boats with very large carrier bands, which allowed them to pass above the caissons and which contained approximately 25 thousand tonnes of materials per ship were brought in.  These ships made 33 round trips to fill the bassin with 770,000 tons of material.  

A solid foundation is now in place for the next steps of the project in 2020. Completion of the portier’s new roundabout and the completed platform will allow for the layout phase of the new quartier.  These steps are also important, because once the terrain has been created, workers have to make sure that it’s technically and perfectly suited to the construction of the new Eco-district.

There’s still the treatment of the ground left on the agenda.  The ground is made up of soil that has to be left in place for a year before the completely stabilized and improved platform can be deemed complete, in November 2020.  

In the meantime, workers still have a bit of civil engineering left to do.  Even though the caissons have been produced and constructed in Marseilles, there still is a bit of civil engineering to accomplish on the super structure which will be in front of the caissons. 

The protection of the environment was a major aspect of the seafront urbanization project.  Over 15,000 fish that were trapped in the belt of caissons were saved before the bassin was filled.