Parque das Nações area will have new American school

Work will begin in July on a new international school for the Eastern part of Lisbon occupied by the former Expo 98 site – Parque das Nações.

The United Lisbon International School is a €50 million project spearheaded by the Martinhal Group which also owns a string of hotels and resorts in the Algarve, Cascias and Lisbon.
The project will be run by the non-profit organisation ISS International Schools Service which works with over 500 international schools and thousands of teachers across its suite of services, creating one of the largest global footprints in international education support.
Apart from the international school, the project will also feature office space, a hotel and assisted living residences for the elderly.
Last year the Martinhal Group, owned by entrepreneurs Chitra and Roman Stern, joined a group of investors from the tourism sector and bought the campus of the former Universidade Independente in Avenida Marechal Gomes da Costa.
The developers launched the project for a new international school for this part of Lisbon, encouraged by the number of Chinese HNWIs living in the area.
The project was enlarged with the purchase, finalised this month, of parcels of land and warehouses next to the former university site in a total land area of 30,000 m2.
Plans have developed to include an educational hub (United Education Hub) integrating academies in an area with spaces for startups and co-working in Marvila adjoining Parque das Nações, as well as a hotel unit and assisted residential units for the elderly.
The United Lisbon International School promises to be a new world-class international school which should open its doors in September 2020 for students from early childhood (from 3 years) to Grade 12.
The school will offer English-language academic programmes with a challenging curriculum based on US standards and leading to internationally acknowledged university-preparatory programmes including the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma.
The formal admissions process will commence in September 2019. For the first school year, 2020/2021, the school will offer a limited number of 150 seats to students from Early Childhood to Grade 9.
Roman and Chitra Stern have been in Portugal since 2001. They are the founders of Martinhal, a group of high-class hotels focused families with developments in Sagres (Algarve), Quinta do Lago (Algarve), Quinta da Marinha (Cascais) and Chiado (Lisbon). They are also involved in a series of real estate development projects in the Parque das Nações in Avenida Dom João II, such as the new Ageas Headquarters and the Martinhal Residences which will launch in 2020.