A World-Class Canvas for the Future
At 6.2 million m² (three times the size of Monaco) and backed by more than €8 billion in private investment, The Ellinikon is purpose-built as the Mediterranean’s first true “15-minute city.” Highlights include the 2 million m² Ellinikon Park, the biggest coastal park in Europe), the 200 m Riviera Tower tallest building and first “green” skyscraper in Greece) and Riviera Galleria the first high end retail and dinning destination in Greece.
The Ellinikon at a Glance
Europe’s largest urban regeneration project.
The Ellinikon Coastal Park
A sweeping green ribbon unfolds from the old runways to the sea: pine groves and olive orchards, restored sand-dune habitats, freshwater lakes, botanical gardens, skate bowls, outdoor amphitheatres and 50 km of running and cycling trails seamlessly fusing city and sea.
For UNIC students, this means anatomy sketching beneath olive trees, ecology fieldwork in a living wetland classroom, impromptu sunset concerts at the Park and daily head-clearing runs that start five minutes from any lecture hall.
Riviera Waterfront & Boardwalk
Spanning 3.5 km of sandy coast line, the new beach of pristine white sands, will be accessible to all and will be linked to the Ellinikon Park via a new picturesque route.
Students can paddle-board before a 10 a.m. lecture, shoot social-media content with a postcard backdrop, hold group study sessions on the pier, or simply decompress to the rhythm of the sea – without ever leaving campus.
Agios Kosmas Super-Yacht Marina
The upgraded Agios Kosmas Marina will feature 337 berths accommodating vessels up to 80 meters, establishing it as a significant Mediterranean destination for marine tourism.
The marina’s proximity to UNIC Athens creates unique academic opportunities for students across disciplines. Students can access real-world maritime environments for research, while business and hospitality students could gain practical experience through partnerships with marina operations. The waterfront location also provides recreational sailing opportunities for the university community, all within walking distance of the campus.
Hospitality Icons
A multitude of five-star brands turns The Ellinikon into a destination in its own right. The Mandarin Oriental Athens ,the Hard Rock Integrated Resort Complex, and more will offer unique hospitality experiences.
Students will have the opportunity for premium internships, while enjoying world-class leisure venues an easy walk from class.
Retail Powerhouses
Two flagship retail anchors re-invent shopping on the Athens Riviera. Riviera Galleria—spanning 23,000 m² and designed by renowned Japanese architect Kengo Kumabrings luxury brands and high-end dining to the water’s edge, while The Ellinikon Mall, at 100,000 m², will be the largest shopping complex in Southern Europe.
Students will have access to part-time jobs, do their shopping, and enjoy a global palette of flavours without leaving the district.
Sports
Spanning an impressive 287,000 square meters, The Ellinikon Sports Park is situated within the expansive 2,000,000 square meters of Ellinikon Park. By adhering to contemporary international standards that meet the current demands for sports and wellness, The Ellinikon Sports Park is set to redefine the traditional concept of a sports facility.
The Ellinikon Sports Park will offer a versatile mix of sports and leisure activities to attract sports enthusiasts, elite athletes, foreign federations, national teams, and local sports clubs, ensuring consistent engagement across all demographics.
Planned facilities will include sports venues for football, basketball, and tennis, as well as an open track, throwing area, wet track, accommodation for athletes, and open spaces for exercise and training.
Innovation & Business District
R&D towers, fintech accelerators, life-science labs and venture-capital studios cluster along a 400 Gbps fibre spine, making The Ellinikon Athens’ new tech engine. Corporates, scale-ups and start-ups share wet-lab space and co-working floors designed for rapid idea exchange.
UNIC’s living-lab studios sit in the middle of this ecosystem, turning capstone projects into commercial pilots, linking coursework to industry mentors and bringing seed capital within a fifteen-minute walk of every student.
Smart Infrastructure & Mobility
The Ellinikon is set to become a cutting-edge smart district, redefining how we live, work, and play through the power of technology and sustainable innovation. Designed from the ground up to be people-centric and futureready, it will be a resilient, highly connected environment that evolves with technological advancements.
By integrating the latest in smart city infrastructure, including the Internet of Things (IoT), AI-powered analytics, ultra-high speed fiber optics, and full 5G coverage, The Ellinikon aims to offer a seamless digital experience for residents, workers, and visitors alike.
UNIC Athens Campus: Phase 2-3 (2028-2031)
The second and third development phases carry UNIC Athens fully into the heart of The Ellinikon’s smart-city. A reserved build-allowance of 75,000 m² (on top of the 12,500 m² Phase 1 gateway) raises total campus capacity to roughly 90,000 m², enough to rank among Europe’s flagship research complexes. Site works for phase 2 (50,000 m2) begin in 2026, and the first student cohort is scheduled to enter in the 2028-29 academic year, with additional facilities in phase 3 delivered by 2030 . The new buildings sit a 15-minute walk from the Phase 1 hub and plug directly into The Ellinikon’s tram, cycle-path and pedestrian network, binding university life to the Riviera’s parkland, boardwalk and metro links.
Academic & Research Hub
At the core of Phase 2 rises a 25,000 m² dual-building complex: a 15,000 m² robotic and bio-aware teaching campus paired with a 10,000 m² GMP life-science and food-omics plant. Flexible wet- and dry-lab floors, immersive simulation suites and data-wall classrooms allow medicine, engineering, computer science and design students to move seamlessly from theory to experiment. The adjoining GMP facility adds pilot production lines and high-throughput analytics, giving researchers a bench-to-market pipeline under one roof. Both structures target LEED Gold and are instrumented for real-time environmental and process monitoring, so the buildings themselves function as research tools.
Student Residence
Within the Knowledge & Innovation District a purpose-built, four-storey residence of about 25,000 m² will provide 800-850 modular rooms engineered for long-stay student living. Factory-built volumetric units ensure acoustic comfort, low energy use and consistent 4-star quality, while every room arrives pre-wired and pre-plumbed for future wellness and biosensor add-ons. Ground-level amenities will include a lobby café, cowork lounges and a fitness studio; at the centre, a landscaped courtyard frames a 15 × 25 m pool and event lawn, creating a social heart that remains active year-round.
Living-Lab Interface & Connectivity
Both the residence and the academic hub are conceived as open research instruments. A transparent ground-floor studio zone, complete with a secure 45 m² micro-lab shell, lets Ellinikon companies and civic-tech teams co-create pilot projects with faculty and students on the street edge. An open-protocol building-management system built on BACnet/MQTT will expose live energy, air-quality and building data through documented APIs, turning everyday operations into coursework material for AI, data-science and human-environment studies. Positioned inside Ellinikon’s sensor-rich “digital twin,” the campus feeds into, and draws from, the district’s mobility, environmental and infrastructure datasets, ensuring that learning is always anchored in real-time city dynamics.
For more information about The Ellinikon, visit www.theellinikon.com.gr
