For the project to take on its full meaning, the public approach road needs to be worthy of this major world heritage site. In future, visitors will start by leaving their vehicles on the mainland. Instead of being just somewhere you pass through on the way, the designers are treating La Caserne as the ‘gateway to Mont St-Michel’ and a proper reception area before making the crossing.
The winning entry in a Europeanwide architect’s competition, the parking facility will be located south of the coast road, 2.5 km back from the Mont. After parking their cars, visitors will either access the Mont on foot or take the transport shuttle.
The starting point for the footpaths and shuttles to the Mont, the facility will have parking space for around 4,000 cars and coaches. In a green setting of woodland around La Caserne and the neighbouring polders, it will blend in with the landscape and make for easy traffic conditions.

The future car park will be built and run by a private partner through a Concession, Public Service Delegation so that the public finances can save 36 million euros.

Pascale Hannetel, Arnaud Yver & Christophe Laforge - Agence HYL – Landscape specialists and town planners

The parking facility contours The parked vehicles will not be seen from the access roads. To the south, the parking area will be concealed a gentle slope and slightly raised fields. This is so gently landscaped as to form a screen without blocking the open view over the horizon of the bay on which the Mont St-Michel appears to float.
To the north, the parking area is enclosed behind a dyke or promenade overlooking the landscape.

How to fit 4,000 parking lots into the magnificent bay landscape ? How to gloss over the presence of these vehicles, and highlight the place itself for sightseers ?
From the entrance, the wide empty space of white marshland brings the bay scenery right into the heart of the parking facility. It defines a north-south line guiding users of the different parking bays towards the footpaths and the shuttles. This broad view of the Mont St-Michel, drawing and plunging the visitor into the landscape of polders, is already part of the sightseeing process.

On either side of the white marshes, we have chosen to divide the area up into several segments which reinterpret the surrounding landscapes. To the west, extending on from the woodland of La Caserne, is the permanent parking area, which is tarmacked. Tall trees (pine, lime, oak etc.) offer some shade and complete the planted area in La Caserne. To the east, the parking in the polders nestles between a new dyke and a slope. These grassy surfaces broken with graminaceous borders mimic and blend in with the flat polder landscape. These parking lots, used in rotation during the off-peak season, correspond to maximum demand in the peak season. Lastly, far to the east is the coach and camper park in the shade of the poplars, following on from the poplar grove belonging to the biscuit factory.

To avoid having fences, the area in enclosed by wide perimeter ditches. These are based on existing drainage ditches marking off the fields into which the rain water runs. Inside, smaller ditches usher visitors discreetly towards the footpaths, taking them quickly out of the traffic and into the bay scenery. The walk up to Mont St-Michel and the emotion of discovering it start right here.

The site : the impressive horizons in the bay and the agricultural polder landscape are the raw material from which the project is built. Dykes, fields, ditches, woods, orchards, farmyards offer a fresh reading of this country landscape. The parking facility takes over these bits of surrounding scenery to create a new site that blends into the vast expanse.

Plans for a railway link to Mont St Michel, stopping near the parking facility, will provide an alternative to visitors to the Mont wishing to leave the car at home. This further scheme is the brainchild of Lower Normandy Regional Council, in conjunction with the RFF and SNCF railway operators