This is one of the major steps forward this year for Uniciti, Medine Group’s Smart City. Important works have just been launched towards the creation of a green park and promenade that are meant to be some of the high points of the future city’s landscape. Named Magenta Park and Magenta Promenade, these two significant landscaping projects will cover a surface area of 15 hectares and reach beyond a kilometre in length, respectively, at completion. The vision behind Magenta Park and Magenta Promenade is to make of these green spaces, the lung and, literally, the breathing space of the Smart City - providing its own inhabitants and those of the region with a wonderful destination for relaxation and a meeting place too. The first phase of the project implementation is due for completion by mid-2019.
Ecological sustainability is one of the fundamental pillars and ultimate objectives of Uniciti’s conception. With this goal as a focal point, the Medine Group carried out, in 2016, a survey to identify the overall landscape features existing within the boundaries of the site earmarked for the establishment of its city of the future.
Working from the results of this survey, master planners have thought-out how best to weave the site’s existing green network into the very fibre of its urban planning – making use of existing water features and preserving natural green corridors to come up with the creation of an interconnected network of green parks, public squares, walkways and cycle paths.
As a result, Magenta Park and Magenta Promenade were conceived. The first would be a vast fifteen-hectare expanse sheltering thousands of trees, including numerous endemic species. The Park is also intended to house a cultural and artistic centre and provide space for restaurant outlets. It is the starting point of a several-metres-wide promenade, that is meant, following the same vein, to become a green artery running through the city.
The vital seed being planted, conception thereafter grew into planning and led to the current phase of implementation - with commencement works currently sprouting to bring to life both park and promenade.
The first phase of Magenta Promenade – a sixty-metre wide and 400-metre long stretch, will be bordered by multiple trees and shrubs. The promenade will connect to the entrance of the new underground passage that now links SPARC sports centre to Uniciti Education Hub campus. Magenta Promenade will, in due course, include walkways and cyclable paths, a two-metre wide watercourse bordered by lawns, all of which will emphasise the long lineal perspective of this aquatic feature.
The implementation phase of Magenta Park starts with the setting up of a 7,000m2 endemic tree-and-plant nursery, landscaping the natural drains present on the site and establishing walkways and cycle paths as well as creating part of the road that will circumnavigate the park, including a parking area.
As Hubert Harel, Managing Director of Medine Property cluster, puts forward: "The vision behind Magenta Park and Promenade is to offer a thriving green zone that will provide all Uniciti residents with a real living space. In Mauritius, we have in fact very little properly structured green spaces that promote the regular practice of sports, are inviting to parents and kids to enjoy a stroll together or provide a healthy meeting place for friends to come together. Benefitting the inhabitants of a whole region, Magenta Park and Magenta Promenade are expected to bring a significant and positive improvement to the landscape and lifestyle of the West. We hope that our green-at-heart project inspires similar ones across the country.”
Source: Uniciti