The volume of the underground car parks dug under central Helsinki has doubled in the past ten years. In a couple of years’ time the underground facilities will accommodate three times as many cars as the street level parking.
In the coming years parking facilities for another 1,700 vehicles will be excavated under the downtown area. After that, nearly 5,000 drivers will simultaneously be able to park their cars underground in the centre of the Finnish capital.
Respectively, in 2010 there will be street-level parking for only just over 1,400 cars in central Helsinki. The ratio is in line with the objectives set by the City of Helsinki.
In the Ruoholahdenkatu area the Forum shopping mall's additional parking hall for 500 cars will be completed by the end of November.
In January 2009 a new parking facility for the Stockmann department store will be opened up. This, in turn, will enable another 600 drivers to park their cars underground in the heart of the city.
The three-level structure will replace the 200 parking spaces eliminated from the Makkaratalo (“Sausage Building”) plus Stockmann’s former underground car park that has been converted into commercial space. Therefore the actual net increase in the number of parking spaces here is only around 200.
When the upcoming Töölönlahti car park for 650 cars is completed in 2011, the limits for underground parking in the downtown area will more or less have been reached.
In the coming decade the shattering of the bedrock under Helsinki will subside. Olli-Pekka Poutanen of the Helsinki City Planning Department suspects that already now there may be a slight oversupply of underground parking.
“These facilities will last well into the future. There are no plans for further underground parking in the city centre.”
The new underground parking structures increase the options for those entering the city centre by car. Competition for their “hearts and minds and wallets” is fierce.
At the moment the parking sector yields decent profits to the entrepreneurs.
Parking one’s wheels in the city centre is not cheap. On weekdays in many of the downtown facilities the cost of parking one’s car for an hour is five euros.
Helsinki public transportation charges EUR 2.20 for an adult ticket within the city limits, valid for one hour.
