Helsinki’s City Planning Department has prepared an underground plan to ensure well-managed development of the city below surface. The plan is ready for final approvals. Helsinki is the only city in the world to have prepared such a plan.

 

Much of Helsinki is already underground. There are maintenance facilities including tunnels for water mains, sewage pipes, district heat and district cooling reaching the remotest areas of Helsinki. Approximately 200 kilometres of the tunnels are drivable. There are archives and sports facilities comprising a swimming pool, an ice rink for hockey and figure skating practice, and a running track.

 

The latest addition to underground Helsinki is a maintenance traffic tunnel opened in 2009 to serve the Stockmann department store from underground and later to be continued to other buildings in the Helsinki city centre.

 

A total of 400 different facilities have already been built underground in Helsinki, totalling 9 million square metres, and there are reservations for another 100 facilities including tunnels and for 40 rock resources suitable for underground construction.