The Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE is pulling out of the construction project for the new Music Centre which is to be built on a prestige site alongside Töölönlahti Bay in downtown Helsinki.
However, once the centre is built, YLE still hopes to be able to rent space there.
YLE gives as the reason for its withdrawal its poor economic state and the steady rise in construction costs.
Original plans were for YLE and the City of Helsinki to each to cover a quarter of the construction costs, while the state was to pay for the remaining half.
The Music Centre project is in difficulties in other ways as well: only one tender for the construction project was offered recently after an earlier round of bidding was thrown out in the spring.
On that occasion the board of the real estate company behind the venture rejected all three tenders received for the main construction contract, as two of them were not in compliance with the invitation to tender and one was too expensive compared with the estimated costs.
On Friday, following examination of the latest tender by the construction committee and a group of consultants, the board also rejected this bid as unacceptable. The decision will further postpone any start to actual construction work on the site opposite Parliament.
