Share this article!

Monaco is home to a new development that makes Dubai look like an affordable housing project.

The Times of London reports the tiny European principality has opened, Mareterra, a 14-acre district built on land reclaimed from the sea. Homebuyers in Mareterra have a choice from 100 apartments valued at more than $100,000 per square meter and four villas that reportedly sold for roughly $200 million each.

The district was built at an estimated cost of $2.1 billion, with properties designed by world prominent architects including Renzo Piano of Italy, Denis Valode of France, Lord Foster of the UK and Tadao Ando of Japan. The promotional material for Mareterra describes it as “a largely pedestrianized district that encompasses a lushly planted park, an elegant waterfront promenade, a small port, underground parking and both residential and retail offerings.”

“It has been a big commercial success,” Guy Thomas Levy-Soussan, administrator of the consortium that built the district. Nearly all the villas, penthouses and townhomes in Mareterra have been sold.

Prince Albert II led Monaco’s royal family in inaugurating Mareterra’s opening on Wednesday with ceremonies that included fireworks and concerts. But the new development generated criticism for the land reclamation efforts that expanded the tiny principality’s size by 3% by building further into the Mediterranean.

“The marine biodiversity has been massacred,” said Alexandre Meinesz, a marine biologist at the University of the Côte-d’Azur, in an interview with the Libération newspaper. “It’s an amputation of marine life.”

Photo: Baldo Realty Group