Loading Text-to-Speech…
“Imagine that since traffic was cut off in Poseidon Avenue because of the works, the entire local traffic between its neighborhoods Kallithea and his Muscat it is served by a small bridge on Metamorphoses Street. This results in causing congestion, irritation, fuss. People are suffering in their neighborhood.” Mr. Vasilis Theodosopoulos he could see from the balcony of his house the bridge of Poseidon Avenue (of “old beach») which was demolished months ago, in order to be rebuilt. As he claims, the work is moving at a slow pace and stopped completely at the end of winter. Recently the project received extensionwith a new horizon of completion in the summer. “You understand our frustration. We have been seeing the construction site empty for the past months and wondering what has happened. Fortunately, now they have started working again,” he says.
Work began behind schedule in May 2025, with a one-year completion horizon, however due to a funding gap the consortium was granted an extension to July 2026.
Signing the contract
The contract for the settlement works of the latter part of Ilisou signed on December 19, 2024. Contractor of the project, the “Ilissou Consortium”, which consists of the companies AKTOR and INTRAKAT. The project has a budget (including VAT) of 9.9 million euros and is entirely financed by the Ministry of Interiorauthored by Region of Attica. The project is not very big – it mainly concerns the dredging of the Ilisos bed about 370 meters above the old beach (up to Agesilao Street) by 1.2 to 3 meters. The projects include the construction of a part of the bicycle path on the beach road and the reconstruction of the old beach bridge. The completion date of the project was one year from the start of the work. The administrative procedures and studies took more time than expected and so the work started in May 2025. Although the project is not particularly complex, there were some technical and some bureaucratic factors that led to the delay.
Payments owed
According to the payment orders of the contractor consortium posted on “Diavegia”, until November 11, the payments from the Region were paid normally. The District then stopped paying her joint venturewhich in turn filed a cease-and-desist notice in February, protesting the delay in payment.
The state mechanism was activated and so the two outstanding payments (about €1.2 million) were made on March 10 and the flow of funding was restored. So far, the contractor has received 4.5 million of the 9.9 million euros (48%), while according to information, payments will soon reach 60% of the budget, as this is where the project progress. Due to the funding gap, the consortium requested (on March 19) and was granted an extension of one and a half months, until July 2026.
As for the progress of the work, next week it will be shut down natural gas pipeline of great pressure passing under the bridge. All networks will “pass” through a small bridge located between the bridge under reconstruction and the tram lines. Construction of the bridge’s abutments and two intermediate piers (the end and middle piers) will begin soon after, on which prefabricated beams for the bridge deck will be placed. When completed, it will take ten days to build the new road surface, sidewalks, parapets, etc. Completion of the bridge is expected in June.
The sea water
At the same time, as soon as the operation of the natural gas pipeline is interrupted, the dredging work of the Ilisos river bed will continue, which started from the upstream, going down towards the sea. The goal is bed to be lower than the sea level, so that the sea water penetrates up to Agesilaou Street and stops the last part of the Ilisos bed from “swelling”. “We hope that the project will be constructed so that we don’t have stagnant water,” says Mr. Theodosopoulos. “Unfortunately, there is already a problem of illegal connections with the bed of Ilisos and it is not rare for the waters to change color and have a strong smell. We hope that has been taken into account.”
