Almada mega city could create 17,000 jobs

 In City, Development, News

A new mega city projected for the South bank of Lisbon’s Tagus river at Almada will involve an €800 million investment and could create 17,000 new jobs.

The ‘Innovation District’ project from the university Universidade NOVA de Lisboa and a group of landowners with land and property in the area of Monte da Caparica and Porto Brandão promises to create a new centre which will attract international companies and investment to the greater Lisbon area.
“The main assets in the knowledge economy are people, their talent and the networks they establish among themselves, and this is at the heart of ‘Innovation District’,” said the vice-dean of NOVA de Lisboa, José Ferreira Machado, who added at the project’s presentation that he foresaw the completion of the first phase of the project by 2030.
And since people need “places to live and interact, places where they can reside, work, talk and enjoy leisure time, cities like the one that will be developed in Almada will serve to reinforce the internationalisation of the greater Lisbon area,” he continued.
The vice-dean of Nova de Lisboa added that some projects, such as the works at the Technology and Science Faculty – the building of sports facilities and a shopping area which are Phase 1 of the innovation hub — should start this year given that “part of the financing comes from European community funds and must be applied by 2023”.
In presenting the mega city project, the Chair of Almada Council, Inês de Medeiros, emphasises the involvement of public and private investors, both national and overseas, in adapting what had been initially more modest projects into a mega project that is now much more ambitious in a common strategy between the council and investors.
Among the land owners and investors who have shown an interest in the innovative potential of ‘Innovation District’ are companies such as Cordialequation, Rustik Puzzle, SOSTATE, Maia e Pereira, Emerging Ocean, Rio Capital, Orbisribalta, the Serra Henriques Foundation and the Egas Moniz Higher Education Cooperative.
Neither an estimation of total costs nor a full execution timeline was given in order to complete the ‘Innovation District’.

INDUSTRY