Ellinikon transforms Athens' former airport into Europe's largest urban regeneration project

LAMDA Development is turning 620 hectares of a disused Athens airport into a coastal smart city of homes, malls, a marina and Europe's largest casino, with the first residents due to move in from 2027

From abandoned runway to coastal city

Twenty-five years after Ellinikon International Airport closed its gates, the 620-hectare site it left behind on the Athens coastline, three times the size of Monaco, has become the largest urban regeneration project under way in Europe. LAMDA Development, the Greek group already established as the country's largest mall owner and operator, is delivering the €8bn scheme in partnership with the Olayan Group and Brook Lane Capital. The masterplan, drawn up by Foster + Partners with landscape design from Sasaki, sets out a 15-minute city where homes, retail, healthcare, education and public space sit within walking distance of one another along four kilometres of the Saronic Gulf coastline.

The Riviera Tower and the residential push

The project's most visible symbol is the Riviera Tower, a 200-metre, 50-storey residential skyscraper that will become Greece's tallest building on completion. By early 2026 concrete works had reached the upper floors of the tower's core structure, and LAMDA's CEO Odysseas Athanasiou told analysts the building's structural shell was tracking slightly ahead of its original schedule. Demand across the wider residential programme has consistently outstripped supply, with all waterfront units and almost all Little Athens apartments sold, and LAMDA reporting interest from more than 18,500 prospective buyers across over 110 countries. Cumulative cash receipts from the project had reached €1.53bn by the end of February 2026, and the company expects total 2026 inflows of around €0.6bn. Athanasiou described the shift under way on site as transitioning from a construction site into a functioning urban district.

Retail, leisure and a European-scale casino resort

Commercially, Ellinikon is anchored by two shopping destinations. The Riviera Galleria, a 23,000 sq m centre designed by Kengo Kuma with Betaplan and built by Metka, is on track for completion by the end of 2026 with heads of terms already agreed on 77% of its leasable area. The larger Ellinikon Mall, expected to host around 350 stores, has already secured preliminary agreements covering 70% of its space three years ahead of its scheduled 2029 completion. Alongside the malls, Hard Rock International and GEK TERNA are delivering a €1.5bn integrated resort featuring a 1,100-room hotel, a 15,000 sq m casino, a convention centre and a 3,000-seat live venue, positioning the site to host what its developers describe as the largest casino in Europe.

Europe's largest coastal park

Underpinning the entire masterplan is The Ellinikon Park, a 2 million sq m coastal park, roughly one and a half times the size of London's Hyde Park, being delivered with Sasaki. More than two-thirds of the total site is designated for green space, sport and recreation. The first phase, including the Sports Park with football, tennis and athletics facilities, is scheduled to open to the public in mid-2026, with further delivery of the park continuing into 2027. The scheme also preserves elements of the former airport's aviation heritage, including an Eero Saarinen-designed terminal building being repurposed as a cultural centre.

What it means for Greece and for European regeneration

LAMDA has previously said the project is expected to add around 2.5 percentage points to Greek GDP and to create between 70,000 and 85,000 jobs over its delivery period, alongside drawing an estimated one million additional tourists to the region. For the wider European real estate industry, Ellinikon offers a rare case study in delivering an entire new urban district from a single, large-scale brownfield asset, financed through a mix of institutional partnership, phased retail pre-letting and repeated bond issuance rather than piecemeal disposals. With the first residents due to move into their homes from 2027, the coming eighteen months mark the point where Europe's largest regeneration project shifts from a construction narrative to a lived one.