The former Kontioranta garrison area is a municipal grief, as the tourism sponsor has been searched for for seven years

The area planned for tourist construction, nearly 100 hectares on the shore of Höytiäinen, 20 kilometers from Joensuu, next to the biathlon stadium. Still, no financier has been found.

Large tourism plans for the former Kontioranta garrison area in Kontiolahti have not been realized.

The zoning area with tourism construction is approximately 77 hectares, which have nearly one hundred thousand square meters of building rights.

After the complaints, the formula became final seven years ago, in early 2018. However, the financier has not been found to implement plans, even in a looser, at least 500 beds.

In 2022, the municipality of Kontiolahti signed a cooperation agreement with a company called Puulaakso Kontioranta. The company had to find the implementer for the first phase of the Kontioranta tourism project.

The contract expired at the turn of the year, but no financier was found.

The only accommodation attempt stopped last fall

There are now any tourism entrepreneurs in the Kontioranta area when the only accommodation entrepreneur closed down in the former barracks last fall.

-Our first snow trail camps, the golf course and the recreational trails need accommodation, the mayor explains.

However, he apologized that the municipality will have to rethink Kontioranta’s further use if the plans for the tourist area are not realized.

– We have returned to the starting screen. One option is that the municipality will start planning in the area, even if living, Tuononen ponders.

The new council is likely to make decisions on the future

The mayor estimates that discussions will have to be held during the spring. Decisions on the future of Kontioranta may remain the task of the new municipal council to be selected in April.

According to Tuononen, there is no acute worry, as there are some residential plots in Kontioniemi and elsewhere in the municipality.

However, the mayor admits that the Kontioranta area has begun to become a mournful crush over the years when the efforts to launch tourist construction have not produced results.

– If tourism is not successful at all, it is not worth pursuing it indefinitely, let’s come up with something else, Tuononen says.