Tower blocks are proud symbols of enterprises

For companies, high-rise buildings are an expensive but effective branding tool

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By Tuomas Peltomäki
     
      All the wealth and power that Finnish trade and industry have generated is concentrated in the mini-Manhattan waterfront skyline of Keilaniemi, a district in the southeastern part of Espoo.
      The same business totem-poles - the towers of Fortum and Kone - are reflecting every day on the side windows of the tens of thousands of cars passing by on the adjacent Westway (Länsiväylä) linking Espoo and Helsinki.
      If the weather is good, the towers can be seen from as far away as Tallinn.
     
The Kone office building looks strangely small inside, even intimate.
      From the outside the building completed in 2001 is massive: it has 16 storeys and it is 73 metres high.
      The high-rise is nevertheless only 17 metres wide, equal to a medium-sized detached house.
      According to Liisa Kivelä, Director of External Communications at Kone Corporation, who is working in the Kone tower, the intimate feel can be partly explained by the fact that in a high-rise building, employees are close to each other.
      ”And when each department is located on its own floor, the storeys easily develop a character of their own”, Kivelä notes.
     
There are three reasons why companies started to remove their offices to towers and high-rises, says Johannes de Jong, Director of Products & Technology at the Global Kone Major Project Organisation.
      ”Prior to September 11th [2001], there was a worldwide trend that enterprises were trying to concentrate. They wanted to have all their forces under one roof, whereas previously it was customary to have several different offices in various places”, de Jong notes.
     
De Jong’s job is to design elevators for high-rise buildings in various corners of the world.
      In his role as an advisor to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitats, de Jong is also travelling around the world.
      Many towers are still known by the names of their constructors.
      ”For example the Chrysler Building in New York and the Swiss Re Tower in London made the names of the companies well-known. The Kone block is also known as the Kone Tower, even though the company no longer actually owns it”, de Jong points out.
      In 2007, Kone sold its tower to a German investor Hansainvest, remaining as a tenant in the building.
      At present, a board on the wall of the lobby indicates that only 11 storeys are occupied by Kone Corporation.
      Three storeys are accommodating the premises that the multinational workspace solutions provider Regus is leasing to several small firms.
     
Money has always been the motive for high-rise buildings.
      Skyscrapers have been erected in the centres of capital cities, where land is expensive.
      The rule of thumb used to be worldwide that a building was profitable until 200 metres, but today even 300-metre high buildings are often economically viable.
      De Jong says that Finland is no longer different from other places, as the Finnish price level is equal to that in Paris.
     
In de Jong’s view, the fact that the construction of towers is more or less nonexistent in Finland is a bad thing for the economy, having far-reaching consequences.
      ”We are keeping our own construction companies completely outside of the markets. The great majority of construction takes place in Asia. There they build only high-rise blocks, which we cannot build. It would be important that YIT, NCC, and other Finland-based construction companies could also participate in the construction boom abroad”, de Jong notes.
      De Jong is certainly also echoing his employer’s words, as high-rise buildings require... elevators. Lots of them.
     
According to de Jong, companies are also relinquishing their roles as builders of high-rise buildings.
      ”September 11th also brought with it a clear fear of the fact that if something happens to the building, the company will lose the entire staff. Now the trend has changed so that high-rise buildings are more like landmarks that the city wants to have”, de Jong concludes.
     
     
More than million square metres of vacant office space in Greater Helsinki area
     
The recession cut the use of office premises, and there has been no recovery as yet
      In the Greater Helsinki area, there are more than a million square metres of empty office premises.
      Relatively, the situation is at its worst in Espoo, where 16.5 per cent of office space is unoccupied.
     
In Helsinki, around one-tenth of office premises located outside of the city centre are vacant.
      In Vantaa the figure is about the same.
      Particularly in Helsinki’s districts of Pitäjänmäki and Herttoniemi, up to one-third of all offices are standing empty.
     
At the same time, around 20 new office projects are under construction in the Greater Helsinki area.
      In the next 18 months, approximately 100,000 square metres of new office space will be completed in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area.
      According to a market report on the office vacancy rate in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area, commissioned by the leading real estate property transactions advisor Catella Property, the worst is already behind us: the volume of vacant office space has declined from the previous year in all three major cities in the capital region.
     
At the moment, the most attractive area locally is the district of Leppävaara in Espoo, where several large leasehold contracts have been signed recently, leading to a decline in the vacancy rate.
      Olavi Louko, Director of Technical Services in the City of Espoo, explains the appeal of Leppävaara by good transport services and the new housing stock.
      ”Leppävaara has an excellent location. In Keilaniemi, the vacant business premises are already old, which is why many of those who are looking for new premises are seeking an office in Leppävaara”, Louko notes.
     
In Keilaniemi, the vacancy rate is surprisingly high, namely 18.9 per cent. According to the market report, the planned structural changes at Nokia (the Nokia HQ is next door to Fortum and Kone) could leave even more unoccupied premises in the area.
      Nevertheless, Louko does not regard the situation as bad, as even new buildings are being planned in Keilaniemi.
     
”The districts will not deteriorate, even if some office premises are left unoccupied, as there are new projects under way in the same areas. The vacant offices are likely to become cheaper, after which they will be occupied once again. This will make the supply of premises more versatile. There will be both old cheap premises and new more expensive ones available”, Louko concludes.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 28.3.2011


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Jätkäsaari hotel site being handled by Helsinki City Board today (21.3.2011)
  HS-gallup: Helsinki residents starting to warm to the idea of skyscrapers (15.3.2011)
  "Wow" architecture does not fit comfortably into the Helsinki skyline (8.8.2006)
  100-metre skyscraper hotel planned in Helsinki´s Pasila (14.11.2008)

Links:
  Catella Property Oy
  Tallest buildings in Finland (Wikipedia)

TUOMAS PELTOMÄKI / Helsingin Sanomat
tuomas.peltomaki@sanoma.fi