Several private investors willing to finance Helsinki Music Centre

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A number of private financiers have offered to replace the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) as a sponsor of the planned Helsinki Music Centre and to accept YLE as a tenant.
      Mikael Jungner, the Director-General of YLE, reports that YLE has already received several rental offers and that the company is likely to make a decision on the matter at the beginning of January.
     
"The rent of the Music Centre premises will be somewhat higher than the aggregate sum YLE is now paying for the use of Finlandia Hall and Kulttuuritalo [Helsinki's House of Culture]. However, for the higher rent the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra will get a new concert hall with considerably better acoustics than the present halls can offer", notes Jungner.
      According to Jungner, YLE is serious about becoming a tenant of the new Music Centre.
      At the beginning of November, YLE withdrew from the venture as the Administrative Council of the Finnish Broadcasting Company felt that the construction costs were starting to spiral out of control.
     
"The state and the City of Helsinki are now just waiting for YLE’s decision. It will determine the fate of the planned Music Centre, as it does not pay to build a new music shrine just for the Sibelius Academy and the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra", says Juha Lemström, the Chairman of the board of the Music Centre real estate company.
      The real estate company has announced that the estimated construction costs of the music complex are to be EUR 108 million.
     
On Tuesday, Lemström submitted a report on the present phase of the construction project to the Cabinet Committee on Economic Policy.
      The current shareholders in the company developing the music centre are Senate Properties, with just under 50%, and the City of Helsinki and the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE), who have just over 50% between them.
      Senate Properties is the government-owned enterprise responsible for managing, developing, and letting the property assets of the Finnish state.
      The names of the prospective new sponsors are not to be made public as yet.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Delays to Music Centre may postpone other prospective culture projects in Helsinki (31.10.2007)
  Finnish Broadcasting Company pulls out of Music Centre construction (2.11.2007)
  Helsinki Music Centre may be delayed by lack of interest from construction companies (30.10.2007)
  EUR 6 million shaved off price of Helsinki Music Centre (3.10.2007)

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