The New Deepwater “Marina Di Cicerone” at Formia (I)

Formia is an historical coastal town located in the nice sheltered Gulf of Gaeta (Tyrrhenian Sea) at about 120km distance from Rome to the north and 90km from Naples to the south, with excellent road and train links with both cities. It is quite close (35 miles) to the attractive islands of Ponza, Ventotene, Ischia and Procida, which are excellent nautical and tourist destinations, together with other smaller islands (Fig.1).

In 2002 the Municipality of Formia approved a call for proposals of the preliminary design of a new yacht harbour to be created seaward of the existing port, now poorly used by ferries and yachts. The selected proposal was then tendered as “project financing” in 2007 and the winning team of investors (composed by the RANUCCI Group, the contractor CIDONIO and SACEN, later registered with the new name “MARINA DI CICERONE”, after the famous Roman writer who lived here 2000 years ago) developed a final design which was granted the 50-year concession in 2010 and was approved by the Municipality in 2011. The slow public authorization process is now facing a SEE (Strategic Environmental Evaluation) at the Regional planning level, to be followed in 2013 by a proper design EIA. The construction of this 100M€ marina project may start in 2014.