Zuidas

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The ING Building; also called The Shoe

The Zuidas (meaning South Axis in Dutch) is a large business district that is developing rapidly for the city of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. The Zuidas is also known as the 'Financial Mile'. It can be found between the Amstel river and the turnaround of the ringway A10. The biggest examples for the Zuidas are La Défense in Paris en The Docklands in London. In size it is best to compare with the Noordruimte/Espace Nord in Brussels.

In the future the station in the center of this area railway station Amsterdam Zuid WTC will become the second main station of Amsterdam and is expecting to be 5th in number of passengers in the Netherlands, connecting to Schiphol, Rotterdam, Antwerp, Brussels, and Paris by high speed rail, the Thalys. It will also connect to the German high speed network, the ICE, via Utrecht and Arnhem.

A train takes people in 7-8 minutes directly from the Zuidas to Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. Problably there will also be a subway line directly to the airport in the future. Also another high-speed link has been proposed by a consortium of companies between Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, Amsterdam Zuid and the city of Almere.

It has already good subway connections to other business areas with the Cirle Line. After the completion of the North South line, the Zuidas has a better subway connection with the city center. The city council is not only investigating expanding the subway network to Amsterdam Airport Schiphol but also upgrading the hybrid metro/light rail line that stops at Amsterdam Zuid.

Large multinationals such as ING Group, ABN-Amro (after the takeover has been completed, the current ABN-Amro World HQ will be the new Fortis HQ) and Akzo Nobel already have their headquarters in this new area. The World Trade Center Amsterdam is recently renovated and expanded.

To create the area a large infrastructural axis will be transformed into a tunnel, which will transform the entire area. The project will cost an estimated 2 billion Euros.