100-metre skyscraper hotel planned in Helsinki’s Pasila

27-storey hotel extension would go up next to Fair Centre

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The Finnish Fair Corporation plans to build a 27-storey hotel next to the Helsinki Fair Centre. The new building would set a new record for height, as Helsinki is not exactly famous for tall buildings.
      The structure would be an extension of the present Holiday Inn Hotel, located in the immediate vicinity of the fair centre.
      According to the Fair Corporation, the extension of the present hotel would rise exactly 100 metres above the ground. Initially, the new building was planned to be a few storeys lower.
      The new hotel would reach higher than the tallest existing residential building in Finland, namely the Cirrus Building, an 86-metre high-rise apartment block in the Vuosaari district in East Helsinki.
      It would also be nearly 30 metres taller than the landmark Stadium Tower (72 metres) and the 70-metre Torni Hotel, which was Finland's tallest building when it opened in 1931.
     
Pentti Kivinen, the Managing Director of the Finnish Fair Corporation, reports that the construction of the new high-rise building could begin in four to five years at the earliest.
      The skyscraper is included in the new draft city plan covering the Helsinki Fair Centre and the Käpylä Sports Park.
      ”The Helsinki Fair Centre would get a landmark edifice it deserves. Similar high-rise buildings have also been planned elsewhere in the district of Pasila”, Kivinen reports.
      This is a reference to suggestions that the area between East and West Pasila, currently used for railway yards, could be covered and used for high-rise offices and residential blocks.
     
Further high-rise building projects are also under way in the Greater Helsinki area. For example in Espoo’s Keilaniemi, where the plan is to construct residential buildings going up as high as 28 storeys.
      Initially, the aim was to build also a 26-storey office building in Keilaniemi, but it has been cut by many storeys.
     
The Helsinki Fair Centre will expand considerably in the near future. The Finnish Fair Corporation would like to launch the construction of a new exhibition hall already next spring.
      The aim is to start excavating for an underground car park later on and to elevate the present parking facility, while the construction of the new hotel extension and a new hall for permanent exhibitions would start only after them.
     
The expansion of the fair centre has been opposed, as the new hall would swallow a slice of the nearby Käpylä Sports Park.
      The park is one of the most important playing fields for junior football in Helsinki.
      If the plans are carried out, the green area that is now used for football training would get a new surface, and in the wintertime the site would serve as a car park for trucks delivering goods to the Fair Centre.
      In the summer the area would offer basketball courts, among other things.
     
The City of Helsinki’s Sports Department is confident that the project will increase recreation possibilities in the city.
      ”The Sports Park will become cleaner and more versatile, and the Finnish Fair Corporation will pay a part of the modification costs”, says Planning Manager Antti Salaterä from the Sports Department.


Links:
  Finnish Fair Corporation
  Tallest buildings in Finland (Wikipedia)

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