Arter Quarter opens

Arter Quarter has opened in the city centre of Tallinn, featuring 44,000 square meters of tenant space. After almost four years of construction, 3,000 people will be working at Arter.

Companies are now moving into the 15-storey office building in Arter and the Bob W aparthotel is open for business in the nine-story building. Work on the interior continues in the 28-storey high-rise that will become the new headquarters of Swedbank next year.

“The Arter Quarter is the most complicated and investment-intensive development project in the history of Kapitel and the one that has drawn the most investment. For us, the story of this project started with the purchase of the property in 2015 and construction and development coincided with a fraught period for us. I am proud that we were able to overcome the obstacle with our good and professional partners – one building is completely finished, while work on the interior of another one is on the home stretch, and the interior work continues on the highest one, the Swedbank headquarters from next year,“ said Kapitel CEO Taavi Ojala.

Arter office space boasts a first-class interior climate and humidification and the net height of each story is at least 3 metres. The raised floors allow tenants to quickly and conveniently change the layout of their spaces if needed.

Arter uses environmentally friendly and cost-effective energy solutions, and the ground heating energy drawn through 285 energy piles provides some 30% of the complex’s heating needs as well as close to 70% of the cooling energy demand, with the rest covered by district heating and cooling.

“We’ve proceeded form the goal of turning the quarter into a ‘five-minute city’, introducing all of the services needed on a day to day level, which will save the people working here several hours of valuable time every day. I’m very pleased that it was here that two top Estonian restaurateurs opened their new restaurant .We also have a co-working space, bookstore and florist, health clinics, beauty parlour and a gym and pool for the tenants’ employees,” Kapitel project director Allan Remmelkoor added.

Acclaimed chef Vladislav Djatšuk opened his new restaurant, VÕIVÕI, on the ground floor of the office building, and Falstaff chef of the year Silver Saa opened a bakery and restaurant, called Aroma, in the atrium. The atrium is also the location of the Rahva Raamat bookstore and the Decoration and Fleur florist. A number of service providers are opening shop at Arter: such as a Spaces flexible office solution and co-working area, City health clinic, Ogen eye clinic and Arter Salon beauticians, and the aforementioned gym and pool.

CEO of Merko Ehitus Eesti Jaan Mäe said that Arter has been an extremely interesting project for Merko. “The customer’s wishes were exceedingly rigorous as to quality, and they paid the maximum amount of attention to the well-being of future users. We’d like to praise the customer for their commitment to looking for future solutions instead of settling for the lighter possibilities that represent yesterday. The construction period spanned four and one-half years, and several thousand people contributed to the end result. We thank everyone who helped Merko on the construction of Arter Quarter.”

The architect for Arter was Martin Aunin, and the interior architect was Arhitekt11, while the gym and pool had ArtAku Sisearhitektuuribüroo as the interior architect. The nearly-zero energy buildings with sustainable energy solutions were designed and built to the Excellent level of the BREEAM standard.

The quarter has a total of almost 400 parking spaces and a dedicated facility with 100 spaces for bicycles, and dressing and shower rooms. The new Veski Street is now complete and the segment of Imanta Street has been renovated. A park for public use is nearing completion behind the quarter’s buildings in the location of the former, medieval-era Härjapea river.