Kapitel to invest 800,000 euros into lighting for Tallinn Old Town
The city of Tallinn and Kapitel real estate company have signed a memorandum of good intent under which Kapitel will invest more than 800,000 euros into establishing floodlighting for the walls and towers of Tallinn’s Old Town. As part of the project, over 40 features in the medieval centre will get modern external lighting, including Toompea Castle, Fat Margaret tower, Patkuli Stairs, Kiek in de Kök and Tall Hermann. The lighting was designed by the Finnish company Lighting Design Collective Oy, who won the conceptual competition held in 2017, and the construction is be performed by Merko Infra.
Deputy Mayor Kalle Klandorf said the memorandum signed today is aimed at agreeing on the general principles for cooperation between Tallinn and AS Kapitel and to empower the Public Services Department to enter into organizational agreements for implementing the memorandum. “Under the memorandum, AS Kapitel will organize the construction of the lighting of the walls and towers of Tallinn’s Old Town and finance the construction. Tallinn for its part will organize the functioning of the lighting, maintenance of equipment and displays, repairs and power supply and bear the related costs,” said Klandorf.
“Kapitel owns and develops hotels, shopping centres and office buildings. Our two Tallinn city-centre hotels, Nordic Hotel Forum and Tallink City Hotel, are visited by hundreds of thousands of tourists, and Viru Keskus shopping centre is visited millions of times a year. In addition to Tallinn’s existing office buildings, we have a major office building complex being developed on Liivalaia Street. In addition to the business environment, we want to help the public urban space to develop, and in the case of this project, make Tallinn’s Old Town attractive to Tallinners and our visitors. Hopefully, the new lighting design will help draw more tourists and generate some positive emotions for locals too in the darker months of the year,” said Toomas Annus, Chairman of the supervisory board of AS Kapitel.
In this project, 580 new LED luminaires will be installed on a total 41 sites, including towers (Fat Margaret, Kiek in de Kök, Maiden Tower, Tall Hermann), the city wall, the slopes of Toompea hill, Patkuli stairs and the hillside ascended by the stairs, and the inner wall from Hobuveski Street along Laboratooriumi Street, the wall between the two pedestrian streets leading up Toompea, Pikk jalg and Lühike jalg and their gates, and the inner wall between Bremeni and Hellemani towers. The lighting concept calls for the new LED luminaires to emit a warm colour temperature, with the outcome being a warm and delicate lighting of the walls that creates a good pleasant ambience without overlighting. The construction will be performed by Merko Infra.
Toomas Annus added: “This isn’t the first time we are contributing to the development of the urban space. Over the years, our companies are invested into making the built environment more attractive and valuable through various projects. The biggest endeavours have been the development of a system of recreational trails across the country, Eesti Terviserajad, and turning Lasnamäe district’s abandoned Pae quarry into a modern living environment and urban space. Bronze sculptures have received less attention – a group of sculptures of monks in the Danish King’s garden and the Black Nights Film Festival Culture Wolf recently installed in front of Nordic Hotel Forum.”
Kapitel (www.kapitel.ee), previously known as E.L.L. Real Estate, is one of the Baltics’ largest real estate companies, engaged mainly in developing and managing retail, hotel and office buildings. The group controls over 185,000 m2 in rental space. The company owns four office buildings (Delta Plaza and the Sõpruse Ärimaja office building in Tallinn, Narbuto 5 in Vilnius and I.P. Pavlova 5 in Prague) and has co-ownership in various leading shopping centres (Spice and Spice Home in Riga, Panorama in Vilnius and Viru Keskus in Tallinn). The company also owns the Nordic Hotel Forum (managed by OÜ Nordic Hotels) and, with AS Infortar, Tallink City Hotel (managed by Tallink Hotels).