The future of the station area in Cesena - by Elena Giovannini, Municipality of Cesena

On 18 July 2022, the final Integrated Action Plan of Cesena in the framework of the KAIRÓS project was presented during a press breakfast and a workshop with students and ULG members. Many stakeholders attended the event and the Italian National Urbact Point opened the morning with a warm welcome.

For Cesena, KAIRÓS has been an instrument of dialogue, that enabled the partners to share and study the start-up of a collective and collaborative learning process on the future of the area around the station. The working groups engaged numerous stakeholders in a participatory process, in order to collect the ideas of the citizens who live, work and transit in this area. Right from the start, the Integrated Action Plan (IAP) was intended by the administration as a useful tool to investigate the existing problems, starting with the involvement of the various stakeholders. Hence the great challenge: it is necessary to highlight the great potential of this area, in order to activate it as an engine for the regeneration of the territory. From this awareness, the URBACT Local Group considered it essential to focus on practices of space use, in order to trigger a regeneration process which would transform it in terms of safety, accessibility, attractiveness and socio-economic development.

The station will increasingly become a place of 'connections' of the city - not only with the old town centre, but also with the new university campus, where in the next few years the Department of Psychology will also be established. In addition, new sports facilities of 'Cesena Sport City' will be built, connected through a green infrastructure - it will become a meeting point where students, commuting workers, travellers, families can simply stop by, regaining possession of their spaces and their time, enjoying a new place at the service of the city. A place where everyone can find their own KAIRÓS. A participatory process was launched that took into consideration the needs of the communities that frequent the spaces and that gave voice to the citizens' visions of the future. It gave concrete meaning to the redevelopment of spaces and buildings, thus  transforming weaknesses into an opportunity while combining aspects of social inclusion and economic attractiveness.

The objective was to invest in an area of the city of fundamental importance, being a real platform for the exchange of different means, which also needs to be reviewed and reorganised in view of its strategic location for the people of Cesena and all those, first and foremost students and workers, who come to the city. The municipal administration has applied for and obtained an important national grant within the funds allocated by the European Union for the EU Next Generation programme. The 10 million Euro project for the redevelopment of the railway station area envisages that the bus terminal will be moved to a new adjacent area and that the current forecourt will be redeveloped differently. For this, a design competition for the entire area was launched in June 2022.