The new tourist island in Venice: the Municipality instructs the company to think of an alternative route to avoid queues for ferry users
Feb. 2, 2025
By Eugenio Pendolini
Almost eight hundred rooms, over one thousand five hundred beds, and about three hundred parking spaces available to customers who, for the first time, will be able to arrive at a hotel in Venice on board their own car or a coach.
It is all enough to completely change the traffic flow on an island like Tronchetto, which features a two-lane ring road which is now crossed daily by hundreds of workers from the AVM Group offices and, above all, by users of the ferry boat to and from Lido.
The risk of traffic jams is just around the corner, especially on weekends: that is, when there is a greater flow of users to and from the island connected by ferry and, predictably, also more arrivals at the two new maxi hotels.
This is why in recent weeks the AVM Group, on the instructions of the Municipality and Councilor Michele Zuin, has formally entrusted the Heritage and Infrastructure Department with the task of studying an alternative plan to the current road system.
Separate lanes
For example, among the more concrete hypotheses on the table is the separation of lanes between public transportation users and hotel guests. How? To get to the new island of Tronchetto from Piazzale Roma, there is only one road.
The only deviation – after the underpass of the Interparking car park – is the one that separates the multi-story car park and one of the two hotels under construction. In fact, it is a shortcut to get back on the road towards the Fish Market and Piazzale Roma.
The idea would be to dedicate the left lane of the road to hotel guests, and the right lane to users going to take the ferry. However, there would be a stretch of road shared with users of the other hotel, the one on the lagoon side, which also has underground parking.
Here too, the idea is to provide preferential lanes, and lay-bys outside the shared roadbed for buses, already planned by the designers. Separation of lanes is also called for in the exit section, that is, the one in the direction of the fish market.
Repercussions on the boats
The best solution will now have to be studied, also because the room available for maneuvering is limited. It is no coincidence that the consulting assignment entrusted to AVM is called on to prevent possible inconveniences.
At the same time, ACTV will monitor the tourist flows that will pour onto the navigation lines in the double directions of Piazzale Roma and Giudecca.
Construction sites finishing
In the meantime, the island has already changed. Here, in fact, as in Giudecca, the 2018 resolution blocking new hotels, which imposed the stop to the automatic change of zoning, is not valid.
Now, between spring and autumn, the two new three-star hotels will see the light, representing a total investment of approximately 115 million euros for 770 new rooms.
Both projects are being followed by the architectural firm H&A. Opposite the AVM offices will be a new three-star hotel that is part of the Hilton–Hampton chain: 330 rooms, a bar and a restaurant. The investment of 45 million euros is the work of the Lithuanian company Apex.
The opening is scheduled for early spring. The second large hotel structure will be built across the street, overlooking the lagoon towards Porto Marghera: a hotel from the French group B&B of Goldman Sachs, which acquired the property from Pai Partners a few years ago. In this case too, the structure will be three stars and will have 440 rooms.
As already explained by the designers, it will be a prefabricated wooden structure, with exposed bricks, with two gardens overlooking the lagoon on the Porto Marghera side. Work on the second hotel began later, so the opening should take place in the fall.
At that point, the transformation of Tronchetto will be complete. And Venice’s tourist offering will expand, with 770 new rooms that offer the possibility – a previously unexplored territory, if we exclude Lido and Mestre – of arriving at the hotel by car.
Source: La Nuova di Venezia e Mestre
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