Nordicum - Real Estate Annual Finland 2014 | Page 49

SRV is looking to upgrade the concept
of a modern shopping centre – just
in time for Finland’s centennial
celebration in 2017. The new REDI
Shopping Centre is the company’s
most ambitious shopping centre project
to date – with over 60,000 square
metres of retail space, it promises
to be almost two times bigger than
the shopping centre Kamppi, SRV’s
previous success story in the field.

P

ia Svensk, Director of Retail Concepts
for SRV, says that REDI will be something special. She is of the opinion that
the very best shopping centre in Helsinki
might not have been built yet and is confident that REDI will be a contender for that
top spot.
The reason for this optimism is simply
that the location with superb connections is
great and SRV has done its homework very
well indeed and has spent years in preparation to take on this challenge.
“As a consequence, REDI will be a dynamic destination offering retail and leisure,
unique merchandising mixes, emotion, and
entertainment attractions. It will also be a
great place to meet other people and have a
good time,” she says.

tor, Svensk has plenty of experience from
communicating with demanding customers on an emotional level. Svensk leads the
development and design of the retail concepts as well as the renting of retail premises in REDI – and couldn’t be more excited about her job:
“Introducing a whole new city district to
the Helsinki inner-city area is something that
doesn’t happen every day – and REDI will be
the driving force of that new community.”
What’s more, REDI will also bring
about a new age of high-rise towers in the
metropolitan area – with as many as eight
towers reaching for the sky.

Vertical City
This octet of towers will be built around the
Itäväylä highway and the Kalasatama metro
station. All and all, there will be six residential towers, one office tower and one hotel
tower, with the highest of the pack rising up
to 126 metres. Consequently, Itäväylä and
the metro will be covered with an expansive
green deck, allowing for smooth traffic flow.
“This project offers great opportunities
and it will, among other things, change the
silhouette of the entire city,” she says, discussing the impact of the high-rise buildings.
Markus Laine, Director of Real Estate
Transactions and Investors for SRV, observes that SRV is now engaging in highrise construction on a scale that is unprecedented in Finland. This type of construc-

tion simply hasn’t been done yet – by anyone, he points out.
While REDI is already drawing comparisons to Kamppi – hailed as a success story by also international experts – Laine comments that the logistical challenge at Kamppi was bigger, since the construction took
place right in the downtown area. This time
around, SRV is confident that there won’t be
traffic jams to contend with.

Even Flow
Also, as Kamppi is a logistics hub with thousands of people simply passing through the
centre, the action concentrates largely on
the ground levels. Going up, there are less
people. Kalasatama will be built differently
and three/four floors of the shopping centre
will have equal status with regards to people
flow. To make sure of this, each level has
been dedicated to a certain mode of traffic:
starting from the bottom, there is a level reserved for car parking, one level for buses,
trams and pedestrians and one for the metro and eastern highway bus traffic.
“As many as 100,000 cars will drive
through here every day,” Laine says, adding
that the metro link-up is very well designed,
too: the metro line actually goes through the
shopping centre, so when you get out of the
metro, you are already right there, at the core
of the shopping centre.
But what kinds of goods and services will REDI entail, then? According to the

Closer to the Heart
Benchmarking of international success stories has yielded insights into such issues as
customer flow and guidance techniques, but
the most important lesson is, in fact, a matter
of the heart. Pia Svensk believes that what
is needed more to the Finnish shopping centres at the moment is emotion – many shopping centres come off as sterile places of
business, with no real feel to them at all.
She talks of “cold space” which should be
brought to life through various means.
She points out that in the best international shopping centres, when you go in,
you immediately feel immersed in colour,
sound and scent.
“You are being whisked away into a
different world – and that’s where the experience lies,” she says, adding that instead
of a “shopping centre” it is something akin
to “experience centre” that SRV is aiming
to accomplish in Kalasatama.

Destination REDI
What does all this mean in practice? According to SRV, REDI will be “an Authentic Lifestyle Destination”. REDI will be an urban
landmark welcoming and attracting people.
“REDI will represent the celebration, enjoyment and easiness of life,” defines Svensk.
As a former Department Store DirecNordicum 47