New Updates Surrounding the Nice Airport

 

For well over a decade now, the area surrounding the Nice Airport has gone through some dramatic and much-needed updates in order for a variety of new businesses to open, and most of all, a more streamlined way of going to and from the airport.

This recently included moving the Saint-Augustin train station 500 meters to the west of Nice, which increased the number of passengers from 2,900 to 7,000 per day with an expectation of 10,000 to 12,000 passengers daily from 2028.

With that, by 2028 the new "Nice-Aéroport Station" will open. It will link up the airport, train station, tram line to the city, cycle lanes, with a new bus station next to it, coaches, park and ride facilities and multi-story car parks with 700 spaces, all next door to each other including 900 bicycle parking spaces all planned just 200 meters from Nice Côte d'Azur airport.

The development will also provide accessibility for people with reduced mobility, and 1,500m2 of service and shops, plus 600m2 of waiting room.

It will also be the first bioclimatic station in Europe.

This station will showcase a huge triangular canopy with photovoltaic sensors, 4,200 m2 of gardens with 90 trees and 300 Mediterranean shrubs, and ventilated spaces for natural ventilation - that appear to be trying to integrate man and nature with the environment it creates.

Nice-Aéroport station, formerly Nice Saint-Augustin, which will extend over 4,000 m2, is preparing to become "the first bioclimatic station in Europe", in the words of the Mayor of Nice, also President of the Métropole and Deputy President of the PACA Region, accompanied by the Director General of SNCF Gares.

So what is a “bioclimatic” station?

“It is above all a garden station with open spaces where the rain will be collected,” underlines Raphaël Ménard, architect and president of AREP, a subsidiary of SNCF Gares et Connexions project management. "Roofs that are not solarized will collect rainwater. And on the canopy, the water will be collected by large gutters. The surface is made up of several layers with first a solar production system on the roof made up of panels photovoltaic and transparent membranes. Below will be a steel structure. Then a wooden braid will make the light filter." 600 megawatts/hour of electricity per year will be generated. “Perhaps we will be able to make this station self-sufficient. This is the challenge of creating positive energy mobility.” And promising,“carbon neutrality in seven years.”

The plan is for the multimodal architectural complex to be delivered in 2028.