La Part-Dieu () is an area of Lyon Metropolis. It is also the second largest tertiary district in France, after La Défense in Greater Paris, with over of office and service space, along with 45,000 service sector jobs, 2,500 companies and a 97% occupancy rate. The area contains the Part-Dieu train station.
Located on the Left Bank of the Rhône river, this urban centre also provides major entertainment and cultural facilities, including one of the largest urban shopping malls in Europe, 800 shops, Paul Bocuse indoor food market, café terraces, the Auditorium concert hall, Bourse du Travail theatre, Municipal Library, Departmental Archives and Fort Montluc. Moreover, it harbours Tour Incity (), Tour Part-Dieu () and Tour Oxygène (), making Lyon one of the few European cities able to display high-rise architecture right next to its historical core.
The central business district is currently undergoing major renovation and construction works, according to a revitalization project totalling €2.5 billion between public and private investments.
Urbanity
Urban and green space
A district of 21,000 inhabitants, La Part-Dieu has developed on both sides of the railway and is mostly made up of high-rise and low-rise architecture. According to La Part-Dieu SPL area, this 3rd arrondissement district is roughly limited by Garibaldi street to the West (Rhône Docks and Place Guichard district), Juliette Récamier to the North (Brotteaux district), Maurice Flandin to the East (La Villette district) and the former La Buire automotive plants to the South (ZAC de La Buire). The original project was based on La Défense urban planning model.
La Rize river used to run through Part-Dieu but was buried in a sewage system. Nowadays, urban planners aim at preventing urban heat island effects thanks to green spaces. For example, Garibaldi street, once a main urban highway, has been revamped as a part of a green path going from Tête d’Or Park to Sergent Blandan and Gerland Park. La Part-Dieu also offers several plazas (Nelson Mandela, Europe, Du lac, Voltaire and Francfort), several gardens (Jugan, Jacob-Kaplan and Sainte-Marie-Perrin) and a park (Montluc Fort), on top of the centenary plane trees from the former cavalry barracks.
Education
Governance
The current 3rd arrondissement mayor is environmentalist Véronique Bertrand-Dubois. She works for Lyon Metropolis' permanent commission as an advisor on urban habitat, planning, housing and politics.
The SPL Part-Dieu, or La Part-Dieu's publicly owned local development corporation, is used by local authorities as an operational tool. It was created back in 2014 and is governed by a board of administrators, chaired by David Kimelfed, head of Lyon Metropolis. 20 people work on urban, economic, human and resources related problems. They manage, control, promote and coordinate the La Part-Dieu project.
Lyon Metropolis is headquartered in La Part-Dieu district, in a Brutalist architecture building from the 1970s, on Garibaldi street. It concentrates hundreds of civil workers and local figures hold regular meetings there. Other authority figures include Police Headquarters inside Fort Montluc since 2007 and headquarters (Lyon transportation authority).
Urban services
4 sports facilities
9 private nurseries
concierge services including dry-cleaning and postal services
primary and business schools
Manufacture des tabacs Lyon 3 Jean Moulin University campus
History
Etymology
Various theories try to explain the origins of the "Part-Dieu" name (literally "Property of God"). It could either come from the tenacity with which several landlords managed to save pieces of land from Rhône waters or how Guillaume de Fuer named his parcel "Pardeu" by the end of the 12th century. A last theory states that Marc-Antoine Mazenod gave his 140 hectares land to Hôtel-Dieu Public Hospitals after his daughter was saved miraculously and named it "Gift from God".
Farmlands
Before the 1850s, La Part-Dieu was composed of rural flood-zones. It was ceded by the Mazenod-Servient family to the Hôtel-Dieu de Lyon Public Hospitals in 1737. The embankment of the Rhône river and construction of bridges (see Bridges of Lyon) led to the management of flood risk and urbanization of the eastern Rhone bank from 1772 onwards. By the end of the 18th century, La Part-Dieu domain was a large estate bordered by the Brotteaux and Guillotière districts.