One less partition: the Paris 2024 Olympic village is being transformed

From the deserted alley leading to the Seine, the sound of saws and other construction tools can still be heard. Workers are hard at work in the buildings and on the surrounding land to develop or redevelop what was an industrial wasteland "where no one wanted to go before", according to the socialist mayor of Saint-Denis, Mathieu Hanotin.

Now, modern and colorful facades follow one another on one side of the alley, and on the other the old Halle Maxwell power station has been rehabilitated to accommodate teams from the Ministry of the Interior.

In the middle of the street, the building with the golden balcony railings, previously occupied by the delegation of Australian athletes, is undergoing a makeover: in the four-room apartment on the second floor, there are still traces on the walls and ceiling of the old partition, which delimited a room occupied by two athletes.

"In total there were eight athletes in this apartment," divided into four double rooms, explains Virginie Leroy, president of Vinci Immobilier, one of the developers who designed the buildings of the Olympic village.

Of this temporary accommodation, three bedrooms and two bathrooms remain unchanged, the common living space is transformed into a kitchen and opens onto the former fourth bedroom, whose partition has been broken down to create a large living room.

"Minimal" works

"Ultimately, the transformation work was minimal because we had designed the spaces with a view to making housing," explains Constantin Lécosse, technical director of Vinci Immobilier.

For example, kitchen tiles had already been laid in the communal living space and the two bathrooms, one of which is accessible to people with reduced mobility, have been kept "for the comfort of the residents", he explains.

Priority was given to the quality of the living environment of future residents, and then the Vinci Immobilier teams thought about ways to "fit" athletes' rooms into these homes, explained Virginie Leroy to the Minister of Housing and Urban Renewal Valérie Létard, during a visit organized on Thursday.

Overall, the former Olympic village will be transformed into 2.800 homes, two school groups, offices for 6.000 employees, 6 hectares of green spaces, shops, etc.

"A very strong legacy for the region", which will make it possible to house "6.000 new residents", said Yann Krysinski, general director of the Olympic Works Delivery Company (Solideo).

Among the 1.034 housing units designed by Vinci (one of the developers with Icade and Nexity), 282 will be student rooms, 160 will be social housing, 354 will be rented by an institutional investor at a price adapted to the middle classes and 238 will be for sale to individuals (home ownership program or via the real solidarity lease).

"Students will start their 2025 academic year in the residences of the athletes' village," assured Yann Krysinski. The other accommodations, largely designed for families, will be delivered over the next year, according to the person in charge of "the legacy of the Games."

Low carbon consumption was part of Solideo's specifications, both for the construction, which used low-carbon concrete and wood, and in the uses, which will benefit from a geothermal heating and cooling system.

The future district was awarded the EcoQuartier label by the State on Thursday.

During a press conference, Valérie Létard hailed "a living symbol of our ability to build a France resolutely turned towards the future" and said she wanted to draw inspiration from the innovations of Paris 2024 to present "simplification measures in terms of urban planning and construction".

The "dual-status building permit", which allowed the transformation of buildings without requesting new authorization, "is being copied", according to the minister, who refers to parliamentary work on a "multi-destination permit" for the transformation of offices into housing.