YIT to launch construction of Kankaan Arkki in Jyväskylä

YIT will start construction of Kankaan Arkki, an office block in the Kangas area in Jyväskylä, Finland. The building is scheduled for completion in early 2021. The total floor area of the seven-storey Kankaan Arkki is over 7,000 square metres, 80% of which has been leased out. Negotiations with prospective investors are underway with regard to the sale of the building.   

Kankaan Arkki will be built next to the old Kangas paper mill by the River Tourujoki. The emerging complex will be a unique combination of modern business premises in an old industrial setting.

The new premises constitute a multifunctional space that can be customised to meet customer wishes and needs. Special attention has been paid to indoor air quality, energy efficiency and the functionality of the premises. The building is designed to be eligible for the LEED green building certificate.

Businesses relocating to Kankaan Arkki will be offered a variety of services, such as conference, cleaning, photocopying, mailing and customer services. There will be a café and restaurant with an outdoor terrace in the entrance hall of the building. For meetings, there will be adaptable conference rooms available to tenants. A car park will be built next to the building. The construction of a new indoor parking facility in the Kangas area will start soon. It will be located in the immediate vicinity of Arkki.

Kankaan Arkki is the first joint venture between YIT and Jykia, where YIT is responsible for the design and construction of the building and Jykia for the acquisition of tenants and concept development. Tenants in Kankaan Arkki include Accountor, Juvenes, Monetra, Yritystehdas and YIT. The companies moving to Kankaan Arkki justify the decision with the excellent location of Kangas, highly adaptable working space and wide range of services.

"For YIT, Kankaan Arkki is a unique project in many ways as we will concentrate all our operations and services in Kangas. We also have a very strong position as a housing developer in Kangas. Kankaan Arkki will also mean more jobs in Kangas, which is bound to have a positive impact on residential construction in the area," says YIT Vice President Marjaana Nissilä-Ryytty.

Once Kankaan Arkki is completed, there will be over one thousand people working and living in Kangas, Jyväskylä.

"The rapid development of Kangas with high quality standards is very important to us from the point of view of the vitality of Jyväskylä. Kankaan Arkki will provide businesses from Jyväskylä and elsewhere with new growth opportunities and high-quality office space in a unique environment near the city centre," says Anne Sandelin, Director of Business Development and Employment, City of Jyväskylä.

"For us, it is important that Kangas will become a special and attractive area for residents, employees and visitors. New projects will create and improve local services as the number of people living and working in the area grows. A good example of this is the renovated public sauna to be opened next spring in the Portti building," says Kaisa Hirvaskoski-Leinonen, Project Manager heading the Kangas project for the City of Jyväskylä.

Kangas is Jyväskylä’s most significant regional development project, where ambitious design, smart city structure and state-of-the-art urban technology combine to create a unique and high-quality environment in the immediate vicinity of the city centre. In the future, there will be 2,100 jobs and 5,000 residents in Kangas. The constructed area will also include works of art, thanks to the ‘percent for culture’ principle applied in the project.

For further information, please contact:

Marjaana Nissilä-Ryytty, Vice President, Jyväskylä and Mikkeli, YIT Finland Ltd, tel. +358 (0)40 560 0753, marjaana.nissila-ryytty@yit.fi

Hanna Malmivaara, Senior Vice President, Group Communications, YIT Corporation, tel. +358 (0)40 561 6568, hanna.malmivaara@yit.fi

Kaisa Hirvaskoski-Leinonen, Project Manager, Kangas, City of Jyväskylä, tel. +358 (0)40 525 4779, kaisa.hirvaskoski-leinonen@jyvaskyla.fi

Distribution: major media, www.yitgroup.com

YIT is the largest Finnish and significant North European construction company. We develop and build apartments and living services, business premises and entire areas. We are also specialised in demanding infrastructure construction and paving. Together with our customers, our nearly 10,000 professionals are creating more functional, attractive and sustainable cities and environments. We work in 11 countries: Finland, Russia, Scandinavia, the Baltic Countries, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland. The new YIT was born when the over-100-year-old YIT Corporation and Lemminkäinen Corporation merged on February 1, 2018. Our restated pro forma revenue for 2018 was approximately EUR 3.2 billion. YIT Corporation’s share is listed on Nasdaq Helsinki Oy. www.yitgroup.com