dix ans après, « on va mettre en vie les nouveaux quartiers »
The Jardin de l’Ars, the Place d’Armagnac, the Pont de la Palombe… In the coming weeks, you will be inaugurating several places in the new southern district, which extend Belcier: a demonstration of what Euratlantique is?
There has already been the inauguration of the Meca, the delivery of the Hyperion Tower, of the Parc aux Angéliques on the right bank, these were important moments… Here, we are thinking on the scale of the new districts: we are going to bring to life. It’s almost ready, we’re no longer waiting for people to settle in, they start, that’s the whole point. We will see how we have reclaimed abandoned places, how this sector of the station, Bordeaux, Bègles and Floirac shine in the heart of the Metropolis. The cranes, the congestion of car traffic – because of the delays of the Veil bridge – all that does not help to project oneself in a favorable way. We were in a hurry to develop these public spaces, so that the inhabitants appropriated these places of life, meeting, school, shops… Having this excitement around these neighborhoods is a great moment.
What are we going to see from Euratlantique?
Ten years later, we will be able to show our response to the fight against urban sprawl, our ability to offer affordable housing and give households the choice of staying in Bordeaux, in a city that is undergoing profound change. By intervening on wasteland, we also return them to nature. We compensate for the deficit of green spaces in southern Bordeaux: the Jardin de l’Ars [qui relie Armagnac, derrière la gare, au pont Veil et le futur boulevard urbain] it will be 9 hectares with the banks, 18 in all with the future Amédée Sud park [le projet rue Amédée-Saint-Germain]. After the real estate programs, the open school and soon the shops, this garden provides a breathing space. It becomes the pivot of the whole district. We saw it with the heat wave: we need cool islands. We focus on generous green spaces, massive plantations.
Ten years, is it also time to take stock of the rest of the project?
It’s time for an inventory, an assessment of what we have produced over the past ten years, and which we will discuss with the administrators. We are going to provide feedback, we are going to measure the adjustments to be made on, for example, construction processes, decarbonization, environmental impact, trying to always be one step ahead, to project ourselves far ahead . For example, we are working on the reversibility of buildings: that we can go from offices to housing, and vice versa, without work: we are opening up a lot of possible doors.
Where are we with the initial project, planned for twenty years?
The objective is 50,000 inhabitants and 30,000 jobs. We are on this trajectory. For jobs, we are a third of the way there. On the inhabitants side, with the permits filed, we are halfway there. But we are not in a logic of m². We are careful to produce housing for everyone, not just offices, but also shops, coworking spaces, places for artisans – all new forms of work. And we want to provide all the public facilities that households need.