Photo: Helin & Co Architects, Voima Graphics Oy
REDI for the Big Time
SRV is creating the perfect marriage of retail and residential in Kalasatama – with extra emphasis on experience
Shopping centres are reinventing themselves in a big way – and REDI, located in Kalasatama, Helsinki, aims to be among the pioneers of the new era. Implemented by SRV, REDI is expected to open its doors in autumn 2018.
T he REDI shopping and experience centre promises to take Finland’ s shopping centre scene to the next level, serving up not only a comprehensive retail offering but also new and surprising leisure-time options. The REDI shopping centre will, for example, provide opportunities to experience the thrill of flying as well as a 7D virtual theatre that stimulates all the senses and where movie action is made real through virtual glasses and motion simulators.
SRV’ s Pia Svensk, Director of Retail Concepts for REDI, points out that a major change is taking place in Finland’ s shopping centre market.“ Shopping centres are increasingly becoming meeting places where visitors want to have fun and stay longer,” she says, adding that people are also seeking memorable experiences and entertainment there.
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Learning to Fly
Henceforth, REDI will teach its patrons to fly. The experience of flying at REDI will be offered by the free-fall simulator FÖÖNI, where you can fly and move in a stream of air using your own body.
The project is unique due to its convenient shopping centre location; while it is true that similar simulators do exist around the world, they are often located far from city centres. With the launch REDI shopping centre, this gravity-defying activity will be within everyone’ s reach. And what’ s more, the passers-by in the shopping centre will also be able to follow the flyers in action through a glass wall.
Similarly exciting is the new climbing centre, featuring a 1,000 square metre training area and a 20-metre high climbing wall. Since Finland has around 50,000 climbing enthusiasts, the REDI climbing centre is expected to be a big hit, attracting as many as 100,000 visits per year.
Shop, Eat & Drink
While dedicated to delivering the Big Experience, there’ s also some heavy-duty shopping to be done at REDI: the shopping centre will feature over 200 shops and restaurants and is expected to reach up to 12 million visitors in its first full year of operation.
According to Pia Svensk, the leasing of REDI’ s coffee and restaurant facilities has gone extremely well. The shopping centre’ s 38 restaurants, cafés, bars and takeaway points, representing a total of up to 3,500 customer places, have already been reserved. Svensk comments that SRV hasn’ t had trouble filling the vacancies, since restaurant owners value the shopping centre’ s central location, solid transport links and large customer streams.
REDI can also provide a real culinary innovation: the“ fast-casual” dining area lines up ten restaurants side-by-side, offering dishes to suit all tastes. Each restaurant in the area will have in its disposal around 100 square metres of hall and kitchen facilities. In the restaurant offering, there will be a strong emphasis on street food.
At the same time, the leasing of the shopping centre is proceeding according to plan. Around 50 % of premises have been leased on binding agreements or letters of intent. Active negotiations are also presently under way with other players.
Going Vertical
Still, REDI is so much more than a shopping and experience centre. Using the shopping centre as base, so to the speak, SRV will build a real“ mini-Manhattan”: there will be as many as eight towers( six of them