The first architectural drawings of the new Barents Center were presented Thursday in Haparanda, Sweden’s easternmost town, located just on the border to Finland.
Stores, cinemas, gymnasium, hotel, innovation center, arena and offices will be built around a new artificial town square just on the border-line between Sweden and Finland. Aimed at becoming the new meeting center for the Barents Region, investors put one billion SEK (€114 million) into the project. The municipality of Haparanda guarantees for hundreds of millions of SEK by renting for the new gymnasium and other services.
The investors say in a press-release that Haparanda-Tornio with the new center will be the naturally destination for visitors from not only Sweden and Finland, but also Russia and Norway.
So far, some 70 different stores have signed up for the new Barents Center, reports Norrländska Socialdemokraten.
In 2006, IKEA opened its first mall in the Barents Region in Haparanda and several other chains followed, boosting shopping-tourism. One million people in the four Barents countries live within a six-hour drive from Haparanda-Tornio. During the first two and a half years after IKEA announced their Haparanda construction, about SEK 1 billion was invested in different stores and the unemployment dropped from 12 percent to 4,7 percent, while process of private housing doubled.
With the new SEK 1 billion investment into the Barents Centre, Haparanda-Tornio manifests its position as the hippest shopping destination in the Barents Region.
The first stage of Barents Center will open in 2016.
