The building complex located in Suvilahti also includes hotel, restaurant and business premises. Many fear that the complex will spoil the spirit of Suvilahti based on alternative culture.
Helsinki lacks a versatile and modern event space that is bigger than a rock club but smaller than an ice rink.
Progress has been made, although the project has also contained compromises, bureaucratic back-and-forth, failures and harsh public criticism.
Especially because of the review and the incompleteness of things, Leppilampi has not commented too much on the project in public. Now that there is a city council decision about the site plan change required by the event space, Leppilampi dares to smile a little. And open his mouth.
So let’s go through what Mikko Leppilampi and his team are really planning for Suvilahti in Helsinki.
So what exactly is going on in Suvilahti now?
The project that Leppilampi and his troops are promoting is a new cultural building with a size of 12,100 square meters. The area is bounded between Leonkatu, Koksikatu, Vilhonvuorenkatu and the new Kaasutehtaankatu, on the currently vacant lot.
– The starting point for everything has been an intermediate format between a rock club and an ice rink, which is not linked to any individual sport but serves purely for events, says Leppilampi.
According to him, a good and perhaps the only reference in Finland is Logomo in Turku, although the space in Suvilahti is getting a bit bigger and more versatile.
The width of the event space is 35 meters, length 90 meters and height 20 meters. There will be 3,000-5,000 grandstand seats, and the space can be divided and modified for events of different sizes.
The complex also includes office, hotel, restaurant and business premises, totaling approximately 35,000 square meters. According to Leppilammi, this is necessary in order to centralize the functions of the event, entertainment and cultural sectors in the same area and the whole is sufficiently interesting for financiers as well.
An important part of the whole is to leave the area’s event field area alone so that outdoor and indoor events and their combinations can be organized in the area in the future.
What is the situation now and why has the project been in the headlines a lot in recent days?
The Helsinki City Council approved the plan change in Suvilahti that enables the construction of an event space on Wednesday of last week.
You can still appeal the decision, which may prolong the process. When the plan is legally binding, according to Leppilamme, the next concrete step is the granting of a building permit.
The purpose is to have the building up and the doors open in 2026, but large outdoor events, such as the Tuska festival, can already be organized in the area during the construction work.
The Suvilahti DIY skate park is now located right next to the future new building. What happens to it?
The concrete skate park will be demolished. Leppilampi finds this unfortunate, but according to him, this has been known practically all along.
– Its demolition was originally supposed to take place already in 2018, when the development of the area according to the previous plan was supposed to begin.
Office buildings were planned for the area, but this plan was put on hold for three years in 2017. Now the plan has been abandoned and Suvilahti will remain in its current cultural use.
However, the skate park will be demolished, because the soil needs to be cleaned and the area’s infrastructure needs to be built and changed. The park will mainly be under the new street coming to the area, not under the new building.
The city has promised that skating will be able to continue as uninterrupted as possible and that a new permanent skate park will be built in the nearby area, Hanasaari. While waiting for that, the city has promised to allow skating to continue on Hanasaari in Helen’s current parking area.
Leppilampi says that he knows some of the skate park’s active members.
– We are old skateboarding buddies from the good old days. As much as we have been able to and the funds have been enough, we have tried to support this matter and in my opinion a solution has been found which is the best possible with these limitations.
What does the new event center mean for Suvilahti’s current small businesses and alternative urban culture?
All current operators in Suvilahti can continue to operate as before. Leppilampi himself sees the event space as an opening, with which Suvilahti can be connected even more closely with the neighboring Teurastamo area.
It’s another matter entirely how well a jagged and do-it-yourself urban culture can fit in the same area with an event center operating under the conditions of a market economy. The issue has sparked a lot of discussion, especially on social media.
According to Leppilammi, adequate and correct communication corrects most of the rumors and misunderstandings related to the project.
– Together with the current tenants of the area and Kiinteistö Oy Kaapel, which manages it, we have formed a cooperation group immediately after receiving the planning reservation, the purpose of which is to ensure that everyone knows what is happening and when. Through active communication, the goal is also to ensure that coexistence in the area runs smoothly now and in the future.
Will there be two event arenas in the area?
Last fall, another project related to Suvilahti became public. Last August, a group of investors and real estate developers submitted a development reservation application for the Suvilahti area to the city of Helsinki. The group wants to build a giant arena for 17,000 people in Suvilahti, which would become the largest in the Nordic countries.
According to Leppilammi, the large arena project came as a complete surprise to Suvilahti Event Hub. Leppilampi emphasizes that he has nothing to do with the project named Suvilahti Areena.
– I think the city also needs a bigger ice rink size arena, but where it will be is a completely different discussion.
How much does the Leppilammi-led event space complex cost and who pays for it?
According to Leppilammi, the project will be implemented entirely with private money, which is why it is not possible to give detailed information about the current situation.
According to Leppilammi, a more detailed opening of financing is prevented by contract clauses. In addition, announcing exact sums of money can be misleading in the same way as, for example, publicizing observational photos.
– When the winner of an architecture competition is announced, traditionally some kind of visual images that give direction are also published. However, the end result can never be completely one with that image, and there are always people and parties who cling to the details that never materialized.
According to information found in public documents, the complex, including hotels and office buildings, is in the price range of 150–160 million euros. According to Leppilammi, the order of magnitude is still this.
According to Leppilamme, the decision to change the plan made by the council from a financing point of view is a significant step that paves the way forward.
– This is something we will announce more about as soon as it is possible, he promises.
*You can discuss the topic until 23:00 on Friday, May 5.*