Christian Estrosi, Mayor of Niceand Marlène Dolveck, Director General of SNCF Gares & Connexions, yesterday unveiled the new Nice Aéroport SNCF station, which will be built in place of the current Nice Saint-Augustin station. Located in the Grand ArenasThis station, which has already been serving TER trains since September 2022, will become a veritable "train station" when it opens at the end of 2028. multimodal hub connected to Nice Côte d'Azur airport and to a bus station (operational in 2024), as well as to the T2 tramway line - running as far as the Vieux Port -, the T3, which will link the Ecovallée du Var to the city centre in 2024, and the T4, which will run to St-Laurent du Var and Cagnes-sur-Mer by 2026-2028. All this will be in addition to 700 parking spaces and a further 900 spaces for bicycles. The building will also house 600 m2 of waiting areas for the SNCF and 1500 m2 commercial spaces and services.
A bioclimatic canopy
But the special feature of this station is its commitment to bioclimatic design thanks to its original architecture in the form of a canopy the wood and steel mesh of which will protect passengers and the various areas of the building from the sun and rain. Self-sufficient in energy, this mesh will be partly covered with photovoltaic panels capable of producing 600 mwh of electricity per year. Rainwater will also be recycled to water the plants in the 4200 m2 enhancing the forecourt.
Above all, this sail will cover the two new lanes designed to accommodate the TGV on the new Provence Côte d'Azur line (LNPCA), which by 2025 should reduce the journey time between Marseille and Nice, currently 2? hours in the best cases. By mid-2025, the number of TER trains stopping at Nice Aéroport station is also set to rise sharply, following commitments made by Transdev, which will take over operation of the Marseille-Toulon-Nice line from SNCF. Overall, the city of Nice is expecting traffic to reach 10,000 to 12,000 passengers a day (i.e. around 3.8 million a year), compared with 7,000 today. And by 2035, the most optimistic forecasts for this station are 128 TER and 60 TGV and Intercités trains per day, compared with 86 TER and 4 TGV trains this year.
Located near hotels and the future Nice Exhibition Centre
An important point for business tourism, this SNCF station is located in the heart of the new Grand Arenas hotel district, which includes the Crowne Plaza, Radisson, Holiday Inn Express and Okko Hotel. These establishments have set up in the area in recent years to take advantage of the proximity of the France's third-largest airport (with 12 million passengers by 2022) and the exhibition centre to be built within the walls of the Min Fleurs. This large-scale Mice project - the site covers 40,000 m2 however, has been postponed to 2028-2030, Christian Estrosi's priority now extends to the construction of a 10,000 m Convention Centre2 on the Quai de l'Amiral Infernet in the Vieux Port. Scheduled to open in June 2025 to coincide with the Oceans Summit, it will be accessible in around twenty minutes by Tram line 2 from Nice Airport SNCF station.
