Luxury apartment buildings to be built on Helsinki's Eiranranta seafront site

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The average price per square metre for the apartments in the new houses to be built on the best Eiranranta waterfront plot will exceed EUR 10,000. "The price will be higher than estimated previously", reveals Managing Director Mikko Mantere of the Helsinki-based developer Apollo-Rakenne Oy. Earlier this year a price of EUR 7,000 per square metre was being suggested for apartments in this prime area (see linked article).
      The construction work for the three planned six-to-seven-storey apartment buildings will begin already next April. "They will be completed late in the autumn of 2007", says Mantere. The tower blocks will have a total of 120 to 150 flats, depending on the buyers' wishes.
     
This plot is the most southerly part of the Eiranranta site, which has five other pieces of land. Apollo-Rakenne won it in a bidding contest last spring, paying EUR 18.7 million for it. The other plots went to NCC Rakennus Oy, which belongs to a Nordic construction corporation, to the Espoo-based SRV Westerlund Oy, and to the Helsinki-based Tarkala Oy. The highest price per square metre was paid by Tarkala Oy - EUR 2,621 - which was an all-time record for a building lot in Finland.
      The two seven-storey and one six-storey apartment buildings will have homes from 77 to 250 square metres in size. If a flat of an average size has 125 square metres, it would apparently cost around EUR 1,250,000.
     
Apollo-Rakenne announced an architecture contest in order to achieve the best architectural solution for the new houses. The special requirements of the contest included unusually large two-storey penthouses, a sea view from all flats, and an option for a fireplace in each flat or terrace.
      The living rooms of the flats are especially large, as part of the homes are supposed to be used for entertainment and PR functions. The sauna, bathroom, and built-in home laundry will be separated from the other parts of the apartment.
      The winner of the architecture contest was the Helsinki firm of Helin & Co Architects, with their proposal entitled Argonautit (The Argonauts). Other contestants included for example Sweden's internationally best-known Wingårdh Arkitektkontor.
      "We have received quite a lot of enquiries both from Helsinki and Espoo, but even from other parts of the country - including Lapland", Mantere reveals.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Helsinki's most expensive new housing development will go up in Eiranranta (1.3.2005)
  Helsinki shipyard rail branch line to be pulled up in the summer (22.2.2005)

Helsingin Sanomat