The Administrative Court of Helsinki has repealed the detailed plan for the Maria start-up campus. The objective of the plan is to build a new growth and technology business block as an extension of the current Maria 01.
A start-up and growth business campus has been planned for the former Maria Hospital area. The campus has been planned to be significant on a Northern European scale and to provide Helsinki residents with open services as well. The Helsinki City Council approved the detailed plan aiming at developing the area in September 2020.
The Administrative Court of Helsinki has repealed the detailed plan approved by the Council with its decision issued in late January 2022. According to the Administrative Court, the City has not adequately surveyed alternatives that would take the values of the built environment of the southern part of the area more into consideration.
The Administrative Court made its decision with a vote result of 2–1.
The City will look into the Administrative Court’s decision and use it as a basis for assessing further procedures. The City can apply to the Supreme Administrative Court for leave to appeal against the Administrative Court’s decision.
The plan would facilitate the creation of a 4,000-job campus
The detailed plan for the Maria campus area repealed by the Administrative Court would facilitate new construction in an area of 50,000 square metres in the vicinity of the former Maria Hospital. After the extension, the campus would have space for several hundred operators and around 4,000 employees.
The majority of the new buildings are designed to serve as flexible office and negotiation premises. Furthermore, the extension would feature accommodations, restaurants, business and service premises, wellbeing and exercise facilities and event venues.
The plan is to modify the former hospital buildings of the northern part of the area for office use. The most significant portion of the new construction project has been planned for the southern part of the area, the growth and technology business block of which will be developed and built in cooperation by YIT and Keva.
In accordance with the detailed plan amendment prepared by the City, the plan is to move the chapel and autopsy building currently located in the southern part of the area to the northern part of the plan area. The plan is also to demolish the former disinfection plant so that a part of it will be preserved as a memento in the lobby space of the new building. The old epidemic pavilion and disinfection guesthouse would be moved to Toivola in Itä-Pakila.
In its decision, the Administrative Court states that location-specific values will be lost if the buildings forming the current whole will be removed completely from the area and placed elsewhere to be protected. The Administrative Court’s view is that the City has failed to show that the historical value of the buildings and the area has significantly decreased after the approval of the current detailed plan, or that there is no way to assign feasible new purposes for the buildings. For these reasons, the Administrative Court has repealed the detailed plan.
The objective was to begin construction in the southern part of the Maria area soon after the detailed plan was made final. The participants of the project will assess and adjust the implementation schedule of the project based on the new decision of the Administrative Court.