Nordicum - Real Estate Annual Finland 2013 | Page 16

Photo: Davidsson Tarkela Architects /
Helsinki City Planning Department

restaurant with a viewing deck. The podium
contains a sports centre with various sports
programmes. The roof of the podium extends the current deck surface of the Leijona square providing for the public space in
terms of green landscape and various sports
uses like basketball and wall climbing.
All and all, Leijona Tower could add 50,000
square meters of new construction to the site.
The tower project might well come to
life, since there are no neighbours to complain about living in the shadow of the giant and two railways and a massive road
network make sure the complex is superbly
connected. Furthermore, Harkimo’s drive in
demanding real estate projects is well documented: after all, Hartwall Arena came to
exist even if the politicians at the time (including the Prime Minister) weren’t too
keen on it.
According to the initial schedule, construction phase would start in 2013 and the
tower would be ready for public by the end
of 2015. Nothing, however, has been heard
from the project for a year now.
14 Nordicum

Keilaniemi:
Introducing Residential
Moving on to Espoo, there are big plans
under way as well. The proud skyscraper
line-up in Keilaniemi – with headquarters
of Nokia, Kone and Fortum standing tall
along the shore – is about to receive some
reinforcements. This time, however, there
will be a twist: while Keilaniemi is a corporate neighbourhood, the newcomers will introduce residential living to the area. Once
again, the developer here is SRV.
There are, in total, four residential tower blocks which are being planned for Keilaniemi. The towers have been planned to total 32–36 storeys.
The flats in these round towers would
open to the surrounding landscape as widely
as possible. Furthermore, a comprehensive
range of flat types can be created in the towers, using high-quality materials. The shared
recreation and sauna premises are planned
to span the entire top floor, so that even inhabitants of the lower-level flats will be able
to enjoy the open seaside views.

The Missing Link
The planned residential towers are close
to the culturally and historically valuable
milieu of Tapiola, the fabled Garden City.
The broad expanses of green areas in Tapiola will be complemented by Keilaniemenpuisto Park. The new park is to be built over
a deck which will provide a green link between the Keilaniemi waterfront and Tapiola.
For developer SRV, this decade offers plenty of challenges with both Kalasatama and Keilaniemi reaching for the sky:
there is a total of twelve towers to construct.
The company has, however, planned the
construction and commercialisation schedules in a flexible manner so that it can phase
the projects according to the market situation.

Sami J. Anteroinen