Konepaja Train Factory Project, Helsinki, Finland

GVA Sawyer announces a new development project - the Konepaja Train Factory Project, which was started in Helsinki, Finland.

The Konepaja Train Factory, known in Finnish as Pasilan Konepaja, is a complex of three industrial buildings, two of which are listed historical buildings, located in the central part of Helsinki.

The Factory was formerly the main production facility of VR (Finnish National Railways) for the production of rolling stock, consisting of three buildings:

- The Assembly Hall (13,154m2 gross external);

- The Paint Shop (6,208m2 gross external); and

- The Electric Train Hall (6,892m2 gross external).

The two historic buildings, the Assembly Hall and Paint Shop, built in 1903, are beautiful examples of early 20th century industrial architecture. They are constructed of structural red brick on brick and stone piers and wooden piles.

The aim of the project is to redevelop the Assembly Hall and Paint Shop into a forward-looking creative retail and office/craftsmanship/light industrial center, street food market, and events platform with a mix of uses which reinforce each other to make the factory into an intense center of creative and community life with footfall of several million annually. The project location, with a dense concentration of young urban professional housing immediately surrounding the site, is perfect for a modern gym.

Due to demonstrated demand for a supermarket at the site, a supermarket was also included into the Project scheme.

Leasable area of the buildings will be increased using new created mezzanine space.

The developers also aim to obtain planning permissions to allow the construction of a high rise hotel and residential and/or office buildings on the nearly one hectare site of the Electric Train Hall. The Electric Train Hall site will also include a parking, either in a podium or underground, sufficient to provide required and desirable parking capacity for the entire complex. New buildings constructed in place of the Electric Train Hall will be in character with the rest of the complex and will reinforce and enhance its character and image.

Project technical investigations have been completed and design process by AHR Global is in progress.