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An expansion of the city, a strategic hub set to become a nerve center for the Milan of tomorrow: MIND-Merlata is the new rail station to serve the former Expo area in the north of Lombardy's capital. The green light has been given to its executive design phase, constituting a further step towards completion of the urban regeneration project involving two areas: Cascina Merlata and the MIND innovation district, which is taking shape from the private public/partnership between Lendlease and Arexpo.
The intervention will make this area ‒ including its Galeazzi Hospital, which opened in August 2022, Human Technopole and the UpTown smart district ‒ even more accessible and well-connected. This is an expanding neighborhood that is exemplary for its social and functional blend achieved on a short timescale as well as for its role as an urban catalyst, which will be heightened following this further change.
With the go-ahead from the Supervisory Board for the Cascina Merlata program agreement, which includes Lombardy Regional Authority, Milan City Council, Pero Town Council and EuroMilano, the new rail-link project has received €14 million in funding ‒ an amount equal to the entire sum due to Milan City Council by the company EuroMilano to develop the UpTown-Cascina Merlata urban planning project, including the strengthening of the public transport network, accessibility and the intermodal options in the north-west of the city.
About €10 million of the €14 million in the investment will be used to create the new station on the Milano-Domodossola line, the S5 and S6 lines, and the future Circle Line, including the many connection points with the city's metro lines (Milano Porta Garibaldi, Piazza Repubblica, Porta Venezia) and with the national high-speed railway network (the Rho-Fiera and Porta Garibaldi stations). The other allotted €4 million will instead go towards linking up the cycle paths already present in the area. The works are scheduled to be completed by 2027, when the first courses at the La Statale University of Milan in the MIND district will be up and running.
"It's a decisive step forward in creating a new urban railway station serving MIND and the new Cascina Merlata neighborhood, and the city council has played a vital role in this. The station will be located next to the new La Statale university campus, and fits perfectly with the goals underpinning the Circle Line. MIND is one of the most important urban regeneration projects currently in progress, and these works mean we can provide the area and the Cascina Merlata neighborhood with an important public transport link, also from the perspective of intervention to benefit transport options within the wider city context."
Giancarlo Tancredi, Councillor for Urban Regeneration at Milan City Council
>>> MIND, UpTown and Merlata Bloom: an eco-sustainable regeneration model in north-west Milan
The new station will build on the already extensive infrastructure network in north-west Milan. It will serve the UpTown-Cascina Merlata residential neighborhood and its 10,000-plus inhabitants, the MIND district, where the university and the tech services sector will be attracting over 80,000 people per day, as well as Merlata Bloom Milano, the lifestyle shopping center opening soon and set to join together the two masterplans.
Homes and shops, but also offices, tech services premises and spaces for scientific research, as well as Galeazzi Hospital and the La Statale University of Milan: these will attract people from nearby and further afield to this district every day. Now grouped together, these upgrade projects are in fact all part of the large-scale urban regeneration plan that is transforming the MIND-Merlata district into a new focal point that will be connected to not only local but also international urban infrastructure, thanks to the new railway station.
"This new infrastructure will be a strategic hub for strengthening the connections between the innovation ecosystem, the city and the Cascina Merlata new residential and business district. In addition, this station has always stood as a key element for development in the eastern portion of MIND and the University of Milan campus where, starting in 2026, the classrooms, lecture halls and labs will accommodate over 23,000 students, researchers and teaching and admin staff on a daily basis ‒ a flux of people that will make MIND ever livelier and busier. Within this context, the MIND-Merlata hub will make daily travel between the area and the city easier, acting as an important step towards an ever more integrated, dynamic and interconnected Milan."
Francesco Mandruzzato, Development & Infrastructure and Commercial Director at Lendlease
The project positions the station in a strategic, central and fully accessible point ‒ a feature also guaranteed by the cycle and footbridge built for Expo 2015. This approach will provide people with better opportunities to benefit from the public services and the many existing and future facilities, including the already mentioned Merlata Bloom shopping mall and numerous public and private research centers.
Images / rendering by and courtesy of 3TI PROGETTI, TEAM Engineering, S.I.I.P. Servizi Ingegneria Innovativa Personalizzati
