{"id":110,"date":"2024-10-20T22:23:51","date_gmt":"2024-10-20T22:23:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ekobustai.lt\/index.php\/2024\/10\/20\/the-audacious-rise-of-the-athens-riviera\/"},"modified":"2024-10-20T22:23:51","modified_gmt":"2024-10-20T22:23:51","slug":"the-audacious-rise-of-the-athens-riviera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ekobustai.lt\/index.php\/2024\/10\/20\/the-audacious-rise-of-the-athens-riviera\/","title":{"rendered":"The audacious rise of the Athens Riviera"},"content":{"rendered":"
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As the purple-red light settles over the Athenian coastline at sunset, entrepreneur Chrysanthos Panas, owner of the restaurant and club Island, is reminded of his father\u2019s daily mantra: \u201cThis is paradise.\u201d The phrase, delivered each afternoon without exception, described a feeling that became familiar to Panas too: admiration for the beauty of his home of Vouliagmeni, a suburb on the southern rim of the Greek capital.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The area\u2019s special beauty is no secret to Athenians. Although very close to the centre of Athens, about 20km south, turn towards the beach on Vouliagmeni\u2019s avenue and the vibe changes. On one side of the street is the glittering sea, on the other rose bays, pine and palm trees. People sit fishing on the water\u2019s edge, play beach tennis with wooden rackets, swim in small coves beneath Poseidon\u2019s temple, or feast on freshly caught fish. Time feels like it is slowing down.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As far back as the sixth and seventh centuries BC, Ancient Greeks picked prime spots here to build temples facing the Aegean, dedicated to Apollo and Poseidon. By the 1960s, it was Athenians building and buying chichi summer homes. The Astir Palace Hotel in Vouliagmeni, with its bungalows by the water, hosted the rich and famous of Greek society. Maria Callas was a regular visitor to the area; Aristotle Onassis had a house in Glyfada, one of the coastal regions.<\/p>\n
For decades, this coastline was virtually unknown to foreign tourists, who typically only experienced it briefly en route to the crowded port of Piraeus to board ferries to the islands.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But over the past few years, a major rejuvenation has begun along this long-overlooked 60km coastline from Piraeus to Sounio; it has become a highly covetable real estate destination for local and foreign investors. Alongside several five-star hotels, including a Four Seasons and the recently opened One & Only Resorts, this is also the site touted as the largest real estate project in Europe, The Ellinikon, which promises to be a \u201csmart\u201d city three times the size of Monaco. <\/p>\n
At its heart the Foster + Partners-designed Riviera Tower, the tallest skyscraper in Greece at 200 metres, is beginning to rise.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/picture>Maria Callas, pictured in Athens in 1959, was a regular visitor to the area<\/span> \u00a9 Bettmann Archive<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n
It was in the 1990s that Panas <\/strong>and his brother founded Island, keen that the rest of the world should discover this special spot. It quickly became a landmark of the area.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But following the global financial crisis of 2008-09, and the exposure of the huge extent of Greece\u2019s sovereign debt, a massive blow was dealt to the country. Greeks were reeling from high unemployment and a drop in GDP that would amount to more than 25 per cent before it began to recover in 2017.\u00a0Faced with a 30 to 40 per cent fall in his revenues, in 2010 Panas began focusing on attracting international clients.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t just spend the night in the capital before heading to the Aegean Islands,\u201d Panas\u2019s advertising message read. \u201cSpend an extra day in the city\u2019s most beautiful part: The Athens Riviera,\u201d he said, coining the term.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Like Panas\u2019s informal rebrand, roots of the area\u2019s current real estate project date back to 2010.<\/p>\n
Shut out of markets, Greece needed international bailouts to stay afloat. The initial loans of more than \u20ac200bn given by European creditors and the IMF came with strings attached, including a series of contentious privatisations of prime state assets to repay the country\u2019s mounting debt.\u00a0<\/p>\n