TRIESTE – Venice Municipality, the Lagoon Authority and the Venice Port Authority (Adspmas) yesterday signed an agreement to collect expressions of interest for the use of the Arsenale Nord: among the options is also that of hosting a yard for yachts between 30 and 100 metres.
Venice could really return to evoking its natural ability to regenerate vessels, precisely where the Serenissima laid the foundations for its maritime dominance. Today the Arsenale still lacks a true identity, so one of the objectives is precisely to “activate” the areas with economic, cultural and production functions.
From his X account, the mayor of Venice, Luigi Brugnaro, announced: «An important memorandum of understanding has been signed for the relaunch of the Arsenale Nord. A concrete step that opens the way to the publication of an exploratory public notice aimed at the luxury yachting and shipbuilding sectors. The objective is clear: to attract qualified investment, enhance a symbolic space of our city and create new job opportunities, in full respect of the Arsenale’s historic identity. A path of listening and shared vision. We want to involve leading operators and investors, including at international level, to build the future of this strategic area together. The Arsenale must once again become a productive, innovative place, central to Venice’s development, strengthening its role as a European hub for high-end yachting».
Beyond the Arsenale, however, there is also the Marittima, as operators from the lagoon port are stressing. The president of Venice Port Community, Davide Calderan, added: «It is excellent that there is an intention to explore this type of economy. For now it is difficult to understand what impact it may have on the territory, but we believe that the Arsenale and Marittima can become poles of development capable of bringing wealth, without “downsides”, to the city ecosystem, thereby favouring the restoration of some economic channels activated through the well-established cruise system».
Going into detail, the president continued: «Just think of all the related business generated by cruise ships when they arrive in the city and choose the Venetian port as one of Italy’s main home ports. The system could operate in tandem with the Arsenale, diversifying the “technical” functions and creating a strong related economy also for all the shipbuilding businesses in the lagoon hinterland. Just think of the excellent technicians in Marghera: they could reach Venice without any break in the logistics chain, using their own vehicles and arriving directly to provide services on the megayachts».
Calderan also added that this would feed a «discreet, high-spending, non-mass» tourism market, capable of changing the geography of tourism «from our coasts to the Croatian ones and, why not, also to the Greek islands, which, although relatively “distant”, could generate a “new tourism route”». With one “but”, namely the expectation that ships will return to populate the Stazione Marittima: «All this while waiting for the Vittorio Emanuele to restore its natural depth, allowing ships to transit and giving new life to one of the flagships of global ship management, namely the Tronchetto Stazione Marittima».
