Original Sokos Hotel Kupittaa

We built a hotel for Turun Osuuskauppa in Kupittaa, Turku. The construction work started in late autumn 2018 and the building was completed in spring 2020. The hotel building is a continuation to the Intelligate I and II office building projects previously carried out by YIT.

The hotel property is located next to Kupittaa railway station, and access to the station is via the ground floor of the hotel building. The hotel can be easily reached by train and car. In addition, the city’s public transport covers the area well and the distance to Turku Cathedral is less than one kilometre.

The total area of this turnkey contract-based project is approximately 9,000 square metres. The building has seven floors, with a total of 196 hotel rooms. Reception and restaurant facilities for more than 300 people are on the first floor. The sauna, gym and lounge facilities are on the ninth floor. The rooftop terrace offers stunning views over the city centre of Turku. Parking is found underneath the hotel, in a previously built underground garage, with auxiliary facilities added for the hotel.

Construction challenges

A previously built basement, which extends under the hotel building, had to be taken into account in the construction design. When the basement was originally built, preparations were made for a building to be built on top of it, but the spacing of the columns was not suitable for the hotel building. However, it was decided that the existing columns should be kept, which posed some challenges for the architectural design. One significant change compared to the original was the increased load, which is why we had to build some complex load transfer structures in the basement and reinforce the existing structures.

The location of the construction site posed many challenges and required good planning throughout the project. The adjacent NEO hospital with its operating theatres, the flow of people in office buildings and at the railway station, and train traffic all had to be taken into account during the construction work.

Next to the rail tracks, some of the work had to be done at night when there was no commuter train traffic and it was possible to switch off the electricity serving the tracks. Operations in the vicinity of the railway required close cooperation with VR, the Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency and subcontractors.

The progress of the construction work was sped up by increasing the prefabrication rate, the most notable examples being the bathroom modules purchased from Italy.

YIT has carried out several development projects in the Kupittaa area in Turku, such as the Kupittaa campus of Turku University of Applied Sciences, the Kupittaa Ball Game Hall, and Veritas’ Headquarters. At the moment we are constructing the Kupittaan Parkki parking facilities.

Hotel Hamburger Börs, Turku, Finland

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