In the former grounds of EDP’s thermoelectric plant, in Freixo — closed and degraded for decades — one of the largest real estate projects in Porto will be built, with housing, commerce, services and public spaces. There are more than 56,000 square meters returned to the city, in an intervention that reconciles the industrial past with a new vision of the future for the eastern part of the city.

The name Central Freixo leaves no room for doubt: Freixo is the city’s new center of attention. This is the vision shared by Ginkgo Advisor, a European investment fund with extensive experience in urban soil regeneration in countries such as France, Belgium and Spain, and Emerge, a real estate development and development company of the Mota-Engil group. Together, they sign what will be one of the largest recoveries of territory for public use in the country and one of the main real estate projects in Porto.

  new urban dimension, overlooking the Douro River.

With an estimated investment of about 200 million euros, Central Freixo will transform more than 56,000 m² of vacant territory into a new part of the city. The first phase of the project includes three buildings with about 14,000 m² of built area (66 apartments and spaces for commerce and services), organized around a public square. There are also 10 villas on the river, inspired by the traditional bourgeois architecture of Porto. In all, the first of five phases foresees 57,384 m² of construction and 31,418 m² of public concession areas, opening to the city a significant set of streets, squares and green spaces so far inaccessible.

“This is the place. The new city of Porto will be here.”

The architecture project of Central Freixo, signed by the Souto Moura Arquitectos office, defines the river as a starting point. “The theme of this city fragment is the river. Everything is done according to the river”, says architect Eduardo Souto de Moura, Pritzker Prize and an essential figure of contemporary architecture.

“Coming to this pile of stone and making a city, with kids playing, with people living, is a touching thing,” he confesses. For this reason, the intervention respects the relief and memory of the place: old walls, slopes, houses based on support structures, squares and paths inspired by the historic center of Porto. “We have squares, we have gardens, we have avenues like in Fontaínhas”, describes the architect, adding that this project “has all the conditions to be good, asking for more is almost impossible”. “This is the place. The new city of Porto will be here.”

The construction of the first phase of Central Freixo is expected to start at the end of 2025 and will have an estimated duration of two years. The commercialization, which will begin in the fall, will have the support of consultants Dils and Savills, partners for the national and international markets.