With the aim of redesigning the geometry of the Malecòn, a vertical face seawall protecting the northern waterfront of the city of La Habana, a wide experimental campaign was carried out. The latter was performed in the frame of a collaboration between the Government of the isle of Cuba and the CUGRI consortium, an Italian institution which joins the Universities of Salerno and Napoli "Federico II". The different solutions investigated allowed both to detect the best solution for reducing the overtopping and to assess the role of wave setup and low frequency components of the incoming wave spectrum on the predictions of the mean overtopping rate. The stability of two nearshore structures designed to protect the seawall has also been assessed.