KREAN in association with OFICINA URBANA of Buenos Aires has developed for the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) the necessary consultancy to undertake the pre-feasibility studies for the urban development of Stage II of the Master Plan of the Port of Asunción.

The work seeks to contribute to the recovery and enhancement of the Central Area of the city of Asunción, understanding that the new Port City interface zone is integrated with the San Jerónimo neighbourhood and the Historic Centre of Asunción.

An expanded territory that must be understood as sequential to the evolution of the urban, environmental, social and economic agenda with the objective of involving all the surrounding areas in a systemic and progressive process of territorial development, including collaboration and partnership between the public and private sectors.

The scope of the consultancy has included the following:

• To provide management continuity to the initial strategic planning process of the Port of Asunción from an inclusive perspective with the surroundings and the landscape and environmental enhancement of the Coastal Strip.
• To guide future decisions, making the materialisation of private and mixed-use investment projects sustainable.
• To provide flexible and adaptable socio-environmental solutions, linked to water dynamics and its interaction with human activities in the area.
• Propose structural flood mitigation measures for Avenida Stella Maris, derived from the flooding of the Paraguay River, providing naturalisation criteria, ecological rehabilitation and widening of riverbeds.
• Generate biodiversity corridors that integrate natural and cultural heritage based on the enhancement of coastal spaces and urban banks generated in the Coastal Strip Plan.
• Contribute proposals to the sustainable mobility network, based on the integration of public land and water mobility systems and the promotion of collective and individual non-motorised means of passenger transport.
• Systemic vision of public spaces, connected and diverse, of different sizes and purposes (parks, squares, green routes, urban trees, waterfronts, riverbanks) favouring the continuity of water and ecological systems on an urban scale.
• To advance towards a management model for the development of the Port of Asunción area between public agents, as well as with the private sector, developers and investors in Asunción.

To point out that the result of the consultancy has been presented in two workshops held in Asunción, addressed to the National and Municipal Government on the one hand and to private agents and civil society on the other.

Finally, the project was presented at the 37th annual meeting of RETE, Association for the Collaboration between Ports and Cities, held in Madrid.