Gdańsk New South: building a city around rail

The 165-hectare transit-oriented development project is being planned around approximately 7km of new rail infrastructure and six new stations in the south of the city.

A major transport investment in Gdańsk is set to open up a new development corridor in one of Poland’s fastest-growing metropolitan areas. Gdańsk New South is a 165-hectare transit-oriented development project being planned around the new PKM Południe metropolitan railway, which will add approximately 7km of rail infrastructure and six new stations to the south of the city.

Backed by around €500 million of planned rail investment, the project brings together transport infrastructure, publicly owned land and long-term urban development, creating opportunities across residential, commercial, service and mixed-use real estate.

With the railway scheduled to open in 2030, Gdańsk is seeking to use the investment not simply to improve connectivity, but as the catalyst for a new generation of neighbourhoods built around public transport.

Gdańsk New South is not simply a transport infrastructure project. It is an attempt to use a major new metropolitan railway investment as a catalyst for a new model of urban development in one of Poland’s fastest-growing metropolitan areas. By bringing together rail infrastructure, land-use planning, public land and a long-term implementation strategy, the project aims to coordinate infrastructure investment and urban growth from the outset.

Rapid residential growth

Southern Gdańsk has experienced rapid residential growth over the last two decades. Today, more than 130,000 people live in this part of the city, but its urban structure remains fragmented and strongly dependent on road transport. The new PKM Południe metropolitan railway creates an opportunity to change this development pattern.

Approximately 7km of new railway infrastructure and six new stations will provide a new public transport backbone for southern Gdańsk. The railway investment, estimated at approximately €500 million, is planned for delivery in 2030.

Rather than treating the railway and surrounding development as separate projects, the City of Gdańsk and the Pomorskie Regional Government have decided to plan them together. This is the idea behind Gdańsk New South.

From railway stations to urban centres

The masterplan covers approximately 165 hectares around the future PKM Południe stations. Its objective is not simply to maximise development density around transport nodes. The project is exploring how each station can become the centre of a complete neighbourhood, combining housing with workplaces, everyday services, schools and social infrastructure, public spaces, greenery and walking and cycling connections.

“We do not want to build a railway and then simply wait to see what happens around its stations. The ambition of Gdańsk New South is to connect infrastructure, urban planning and investment from the beginning. The railway gives us a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create new urban centres in southern Gdańsk, and we want to use that opportunity deliberately,” says Michał Jamroż, Gdańsk New South project manager.

The six station areas have very different conditions and therefore require different development strategies. Together, however, they form a single development corridor connected by high-capacity public transport. This creates the potential to shift growth away from a predominantly car-dependent model towards transit-oriented development.

From masterplan to implementation

In 2026, the project moved from strategic analysis into urban design. Following an international procurement process, the masterplan is being prepared by Rotterdam-based KCAP together with Gdańsk-based A2P2 architecture & planning.

The first stage combined spatial, transport, environmental, demographic and market analysis with extensive public engagement. The project is now moving into increasingly detailed urban design, ultimately defining development principles for individual station areas.

At the same time, the project partners are developing an implementation model for the masterplan. This is a crucial part of the process: Gdańsk New South is intended to become not only a planning document, but a framework capable of guiding investment over many years.

A public-sector development platform

One of the project’s strongest assets is the significant amount of publicly controlled land within the corridor. Approximately 30 hectares of public land could form the first portfolio of development opportunities associated with the masterplan.

The first stage of the masterplan has identified approximately 286,000 sq m of development potential on 22.2 hectares of publicly owned land controlled by the City of Gdańsk and the Pomorskie Regional Government, including approximately 206,000 sq m of residential floor area and 80,000 sq m of service uses.

This gives the public sector an opportunity not only to regulate development through planning, but also to participate actively in creating new districts.

The implementation work therefore considers different models of cooperation with the private sector, including phased land release, joint ventures and other forms of public-private cooperation. The objective is to create a predictable long-term pipeline rather than a collection of unrelated individual land transactions.

Infrastructure creating value

The underlying principle of Gdańsk New South is simple: a major public investment in transport infrastructure creates accessibility, and accessibility creates land and development value.

The challenge is to translate part of that value into better urban development. For Gdańsk, this means coordinating infrastructure delivery, public land, planning and private investment so that the benefits generated by the new railway contribute to creating complete neighbourhoods rather than increasing development pressure around stations.

This approach is still relatively uncommon in Poland, where transport infrastructure and real estate development have traditionally been planned through largely separate processes.

Gdańsk New South is conceived as a long-term investment corridor rather than a single development project. For investors and development partners, this provides access to a pipeline of development opportunities around six future rail stations, backed by significant publicly controlled land and major transport infrastructure being advanced by the public sector.

The coordinated masterplanning process encompasses the entire corridor, with opportunities expected across residential, commercial, service and mixed-use development and scope for different partnership and investment structures.

The first opportunities are expected to emerge progressively as the masterplan and implementation framework are completed, with the masterplan scheduled for completion in August 2027.

A wider ambition

Gdańsk New South is also part of a broader discussion about how European cities can finance and manage growth around major infrastructure investments. The project team has been studying development models in cities including Copenhagen and Rotterdam, looking particularly at the relationship between public land ownership, infrastructure investment and long-term urban development.

The aim is not to copy one particular European model, but to develop an approach suited to Polish legal, financial and planning conditions.

For Gdańsk, the railway is therefore only the starting point. The longer-term objective is to demonstrate that major transport investment can be used deliberately to create urban value: new homes, local centres, public spaces and investment opportunities, while simultaneously supporting a more sustainable metropolitan development model. 

This article is sponsored by InvestGDA and Agencja Rozwoju Pomorza

For more information please visit www.nowepoludnie.pl