A few sweeps, a final scrubbing machine pass, and the Saint-Denis-Pleyel station, northern terminus of the extension of line 14 of the Paris metro and future hub of the Grand Paris Express, will be ready, just in time for the Olympic Games. “It’s a little Châtelet in the north of Paris,” smiles Mathieu Mallet, project director responsible for the construction of the station, relieved to deliver the building on time.
When he took charge of the file in September 2021, there were barely three years left to complete the project. A constraint that gave him a cold sweat, he confides. As of next Wednesday and the passage of the safety commission, the work started in 2017 will be officially completed. So he proudly presents “the largest, and for me the most beautiful” of the future 68 stations of the Grand Paris Express in Ile-de-France. The station, which plunges 28 meters deep, was designed by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, who designed the New National Stadium in Tokyo, host of the last Olympic Games.
Inside, the architecture made entirely of glass, metal and above all oak wood slats provides “a hushed acoustic”, underlines Mathieu Mallet. In the interchange room, which will distribute passenger flows towards the 14 but also lines 15, 16 and 17 in a few years, a glass roof located around twenty meters high brings in natural light.
This station with its grandiose architecture cost between 300 and 350 million euros, according to Bernard Cathelain, member of the board of directors of the Société des Grands Projets (SGP, formerly Société du Grand Paris), project manager of the site. The total budget for the extension of the 14 – which will go to Orly airport in the south – is estimated at 2 billion euros. “From Pleyel, in 2030-2031 we will have an easy connection with the main points of the Paris region,” rejoices Bernard Cathelain.
From 2026, lines 16 and 17 will connect Clichy-Montfermeil and Le Bourget station. Then at the end of 2030, Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport will be accessible thanks to the extension of the 17. Same thing for the 15, this circular line 75 kilometers long which will cross 45 municipalities in Île-de-France, including he arrival is planned for 2031. Ultimately, we expect 250,000 travelers per day at Saint-Denis-Pleyel, the busiest station in this new network under construction.
Initially, the inauguration of the extension of line 14 is expected at the end of June, a short month before the Olympics. This will be the only transport infrastructure delivered on time compared to what was promised in the application file, unlike the Charles de Gaulle Express – which must connect the airport to Paris non-stop in 20 minutes by 2027 now – and the first portions of lines 16 and 17.
The opening of the Saint-Denis-Pleyel station is crucial in the context of the Olympic Games, since it will serve the athletes’ village but also the Stade de France and the Olympic aquatic center thanks to the “Pleyel urban crossing”. This footbridge, connected to the station and inaugurated this Thursday, should make it possible to cross on foot one of the widest railway lines in the world, made up of 48 tracks – and the busiest in Europe -, to reach the Stade de France in 10 or 15 minutes instead of half an hour currently at the cost of a long detour.
The emergence of the station is a further milestone in the radical transformation of this district to the south of the popular city of Saint-Denis. Just a stone’s throw away, a 40-story four-star hotel is about to open in the gigantic Pleyel Tower, renovated after being abandoned for a long time.
Above the station, a vast cultural space of 5,000 m2 should emerge by 2026-2027. Not to mention the numerous new housing units and offices being built in a territory which is undergoing accelerated transformation, but which is also undergoing the other side of the coin illustrated by gentrification and the exodus of the working classes.
