Motivated by the fees made available by the State, they tried to reclaim the area with the aim of making the land fertile, dividing the estate into farms and then selling them.

Due to a substantial increase in the availability of new farmlands spawned by the reclamation project, the prices of landed properties and agricultural products had in the meantime collapsed.

In the meantime, numerous settlers arrived from the Province of Mantua and above all from Veneto to cultivate fields, plant vineyards and manage dairy cattle.

Starting in the 1950s, workforce redundancies and controversial management decisions led to a long downturn that lasted until 1998, when the company - which owned more than 45 km2 (17 sq mi) of agricultural land as well as the castle and other important buildings - was privatised and purchased by Edizione Holding of the Benetton brothers for 94 billion lire.

In 1997 the European Union recognized the Maccarese area as suitable for the construction of a science and technology park, which would take advantage of both good infrastructural connections and the proximity of universities to create an environment favorable to the development of scientific innovation, especially in the agricultural sector.