Sesto San Giovanni: laying of the foundation stone for Sesto San Giovanni's future railroad station on the site of the former Falck area. The ceremony was organized by Milanosesto and Cimolai, in cooperation with Sesto San Giovanni town council, Hines Italy – strategic advisor, project development manager and investor in the first private development lot, Unione 0 – the Prelios Group, which is responsible for management of the project, and Rete Ferroviaria Italiana of the Italian State Railways Group. Sesto San Giovanni is a city in the Metropolitan City of Milan, Lombardy, northern Italy.
The event was an important milestone marking the official commencement of work on the MilanoSesto project, the largest urban redevelopment program in Italy and one of the largest in Europe, with an investment of 3.5 billion euro. It was attended by the senior management of the companies involved, the Chair of the Lombardy Regional Authority, Attilio Fontana, and the Mayor of Sesto San Giovanni, Roberto Di Stefano.
The construction of the new station, which began in July this year, will take two years and will be handled by Cimolai S.p.A., which was awarded the contract in the spring after a public call for tenders. Designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop with Ottavio Di Blasi & Partners, the station will feature an 89-meter-long 18-meter wide overhead walkway above the existing line, connecting two areas of Sesto San Giovanni that have always been separated by the railway tracks: Piazza 1 Maggio and the former Falck complex. The station will also offer a range of services and shops and provide a panoramic observation point over the whole MilanoSesto project, which will transform an area of 1.5 million square meters by reconfiguring the urban layout of the entire town of Sesto San Giovanni, helping to re-draw the boundaries of the Metropolitan City of Milan.
Under the MilanoSesto timeline, operations will begin in early 2022 at the Unione 0 worksite, the first private lot, funded by Hines with a 500 million euro investment. The development of this first lot, with a gross surface area above and below ground of approximately 250,000 sq.m, will involve the construction of offices, hospitality and local retail areas, innovative housing to be offered at affordable rents, ancillary personal services and an intergenerational program of student housing and multifamily accommodation for professionals and young families, as well as an initial section (13 hectares) of a park ultimately covering 45 hectares. A cutting-edge Health & Research District to house the new sites of the National Tumor Institute and the Carlo Besta Institute will be built next to the Unione 0 lot.
