Nordicum - Real Estate Annual Finland 2016 | Page 54

Going Strong
Riding favourable winds, Turku is poised to capitalise on
emerging opportunities

Sigge Architects
Harpoon Quarters, conceptual drawing.

Just a couple of years ago, this story could have been written out very differently. The Turku shipyard was in trouble,
threatening to drag the first capital of Finland with it into murky depths of the Baltic Sea – or so it seemed. As the
ownership of the shipyard – the maker of the world’s greatest cruise ships – passed hands from Koreans to Germans in
August 2014, the whole local marine industry was re-energised in a matter of months.

O

ver the summer 2015 alone, there were
four cruise ship orders made to the Turku
shipyard – now called Meyer Turku –
filling up order books for rest of the decade.
The same spirit is apparent all around
the city as a ‘can-do’ mentality is taking root
in the community. There’s talk of, for example, forming public-private partnerships and
performance contracting in order to launch a
light rail in the city; to realise cutting-edge
smart grid systems; to take regional traffic
management to another level. Encouraged
by recent success, Turku is now seeking to
create cross-over initiatives that benefit the
entire community.

Cross-over Appeal
Jouko Turto, Director of Turku Municipal
Property Corporation, notes that the City is
trying to get away from conventional silo
mentality since most promising ideas usually cut across several themes.
“What we are seeing here, more and
more, is proof that networks do work, when
they are created and maintained in a smart
52 Nordicum

manner. Nobody can do everything all by
themselves, but when we embrace collaboration, great things can happen,” Turto sums
up H