Welcome to the third edition of City Center Watch, my monthly-ish roundup of city-center news from the Nordics and around the Baltic Sea.
July is when much of the north slows down for the summer holidays. Even so, cities still put forward new plans, projects reach milestones and city-center debates continue.
Let’s jump in.
1. Tallinn asks how to bring everyday life back to the Old Town
Few city-center problems are harder to reverse than a historic core that has become geared more toward tourism than everyday city life. Tallinn’s Old Town is moving in that direction. Its resident population has fallen to around 2,000, while an estimated 15–20 percent of business premises across central Tallinn now stand empty. The businesses most likely to survive in the Old Town are those serving visitors rather than local daily life.
Deputy Mayor Kristjan Järvan has suggested two responses: loosening heritage-protection rules so buildings can be adapted more easily to new uses, and relaxing traffic restrictions to improve access by car. The first touches on a difficult question for historic city centers. How can heritage protection and everyday urban life be given equal weight when negotiating change? Historic buildings cannot support contemporary uses if adapting them becomes impossible or prohibitively expensive.
The traffic proposal, however, looks firmly into the rearview mirror. Järvan argues for easier access for deliveries and school runs. Those are real everyday needs, but making the Old Town more accommodating to car traffic is hard to square with the qualities residents and businesses say they value most, including its culture, walkability and historic setting.
The city’s own property portfolio makes the picture more complicated. Tallinn itself owns more than 65,000 square meters of property in the Old Town, including vacant buildings and rental units, some of which have deteriorated after years of insufficient investment. Selling them to owners willing to restore and develop them is one option. But municipal ownership could also give Tallinn a direct role in shaping what returns to these spaces.
If the city genuinely wants to bring local life back, it could act as a curator rather than only loosen regulations and wait for the market. It could use its properties to bring in services, cultural activities and other actors that support everyday use. The question is not simply how to fill empty spaces, but what kind of Old Town those spaces should help create.
2. Hamburg draws a new axis through an expanding city center
Hamburg has approved a framework plan for the Domachse, or Cathedral Axis, an important connection running from the Binnenalster toward the Elbe. The plan (see the whole plan here) would create a more continuous promenade, add around 6,500 square meters for walking, cycling and greenery, and enlarge Hammaburg-Platz by up to 40 percent. The square beside St. Petri would become a small central park with trees and room for play, movement and social life.
What makes the plan especially interesting is that it treats the route as a whole. Individual streets, squares and development projects may each work well, but the connections between them determine whether they form a coherent center. Hamburg is using the Domachse to strengthen the relationship between the traditional Innenstadt and HafenCity, effectively trying to bring the newer waterfront district under the same city-center umbrella.
That wider city-center geography matters as shopping patterns change. New visitor data suggest that Westfield Hamburg-Überseequartier has not simply drawn people away from the traditional center. Visitor numbers around Jungfernstieg and Europa Passage have remained stable or increased, and many people appear to visit both areas.
The retail picture is less reassuring. With Westfield and Überseequartier, the wider city center now has almost 20 percent more retail space, while total sales have not grown in five years. More visitors do not automatically mean more spending, and weaker locations are already showing signs of vacancy.
Hamburg therefore needs to link the old and new parts of its expanding center while finding new roles for space that retail alone may no longer fill. The Domachse can help create the physical link. The harder task is to make the traditional center and HafenCity complement one another rather than compete for the same activity.
3. Kaunas prepares a rare city-center block for a new life
Kaunas is preparing one of its rarest city-center development opportunities for sale. The former hospital complex between Laisvės alėja, Vytauto Avenue and Gedimino Street covers approximately 1.7 hectares, making it one of the few continuous sites of this scale near the heart of the city. The hospital has moved elsewhere, and a feasibility study concluded that adapting the complex for other municipal functions would require too much investment.
The broad planning direction points toward a mixed-use quarter containing housing, commercial and public uses, with new shared spaces and a perimeter-block structure reconnecting the formerly enclosed site with the surrounding Naujamiestis district. Within that broad frame, much remains open. The auction has not yet been announced, and the eventual mix of uses, ownership and architecture is still to be determined.
That makes this a rare city-center opportunity and a story worth following. An entire block that has become obsolete for its former public function can now be opened and brought back into urban life.
Whoever eventually takes it on should also consider the site’s exceptional potential for temporary use and experimentation. Events, cultural activities, small businesses and interim public spaces could begin opening the area before a long-term solution is fixed. A site this large and this central does not have to remain behind fences while permanent plans are prepared.
4. Aarhus turns a coal bridge into a city connector
Aarhus has opened the first phase of Kulbroen, creating a new pedestrian connection between Frederiks Plads and Sydhavnen. Built in 1950 to carry coal from ships to the former gasworks, the structure now provides a safer and more direct route between the developing South Harbour district, Aarhus Central Station and the traditional city center.
Like Hamburg’s Domachse, Kulbroen is partly a story about an expanding city center and the need for a strong spine to hold its different parts together. Sydhavnen is changing from an industrial and infrastructure-dominated area into a district of workplaces, culture, hospitality and public space. The bridge can help Sydhavnen feel like an extension of central Aarhus rather than a separate district on the other side of the station tracks.
Kulbroen is more than a route. Its industrial structure, elevated views and surrounding cultural spaces can make the bridge part of the destination itself. Kulbroen is meant to be somewhere people spend time, not just a passage they use to get across the area.
The most interesting part may be how the project began. The association Kulbroens Venner started advancing the idea in 2014 and gradually tested the area through a viewing platform, events, cultural activities and temporary spaces. What began as a local initiative is now becoming permanent city infrastructure.
Not every important city-center idea begins inside city hall. Kulbroen shows what can happen when a city recognizes a locally generated idea and helps it grow.
5. Stavanger extends the success of its colorful street
Stavanger’s Øvre Holmegate, better known as Fargegaten or the Colorful Street, is another story of a local idea reshaping the city center. Hairdresser Tom Kjørsvik proposed using a coordinated color scheme to bring life to what was then a quiet and overlooked street. Artist Craig Flannagan developed the palette, and cooperation between local property owners and the city helped turn the street into one of Stavanger’s best-known attractions.
The colorful section was closed to car traffic in 2005 and gradually developed into a lively concentration of cafés, shops and social life. The city is now preparing to convert the two western blocks of Øvre Holmegate into permanent pedestrian space. Around 150 meters of street will receive new Norwegian stone and slate paving, while cables, lighting and stormwater infrastructure will also be renewed. Construction is scheduled to begin at the end of August, with completion expected in March 2027.
Here, the destination came first. The street had already developed an identity and a life of its own before the permanent design began catching up with the place local actors and visitors had created.
Together with Kulbroen, Øvre Holmegate points to a simple lesson. Cities do not always need to invent urban life. Sometimes they need to recognize it and make room for it.
Also on my radar
Riga — the new Central Station takes visible form
The façade and glazed roof of the southern section of Riga’s new Central Station are now complete, and major construction on three new passenger platforms has also finished. Interior work, technical systems and the surrounding public spaces are still underway. Sitting between the Old Town and Central Market, and serving as Riga’s main Rail Baltica node, the station is one of the most important links between Riga’s central districts.
Berlin — Friedrichstraße changes before a shared direction emerges
Björn Leffler argues that Friedrichstraße, like many city centers across the region, is becoming less focused on conventional shopping and more mixed in its uses. But the change is happening property by property, without a shared direction for the street. What is missing is a shared process through which the city, property owners and businesses can decide what Friedrichstraße is becoming and help it get there faster.
Warsaw — central offices outperform the rest of the city
Fresh office-market data provide a strong signal about the continuing appeal of central locations. At the end of June, office vacancy stood at only 4.8 percent in Warsaw’s central zones, compared with 11.8 percent outside the center and 8.5 percent across the city as a whole. The figures do not mean that every central office is thriving, but they show a clear preference for well-connected city-center locations. In a period of uncertainty around hybrid work and office demand, centrality still matters.
Vilnius — CUP grows beyond the shopping-center model
The CUP shopping center in Vilnius’s central business district is expanding with new office and retail space and a rooftop terrace overlooking the city. What caught my eye was the reasoning behind the project. People and businesses increasingly expect places to combine shopping, services, work and experiences, while the lender says smaller tenants are currently leasing well. CUP’s answer is not simply more retail but a more mixed destination. Even the terrace matters, with the view over the city becoming part of the reason to visit.
Reykjavík — a heritage building is demolished to be rebuilt
Something curious is happening at Laugavegur 1, one of Reykjavík’s most prominent downtown addresses. One of the street’s oldest buildings has been demolished, archaeological excavation is underway, and a version of its historic form is intended to be reconstructed. The case turns heritage protection into an unusual cycle of demolition and re-creation. It also raises an interesting question about authenticity. When a building has changed over time, which moment in its history should the reconstruction return to?
Szczecin — a dual-use bridge advances the expanding city center
Szczecin is moving forward with Most Kłodny, a new bridge that would connect the existing center with Łasztownia and the emerging waterfront district. It would carry trams, cars, pedestrians and cyclists. The connection would extend the tram system and support plans for a more urban riverfront in this car-dominated city. The tension is that the same bridge is also being designed to carry heavy military traffic and provide an alternative route to the port.
Oulu — a miniature city center comes to Hollihaka
Oulu’s Hollihaka activity park will soon gain a play structure shaped as a miniature Oulu, complete with familiar buildings, façades and the Toripolliisi statue. Residents chose the city theme for a park already strongly oriented toward children and young people. It is a small addition, but a useful reminder that city centers need reasons for younger people to spend time there too.
Read the previous editions here.
Photo credit: Margo Evardson
Leave a Reply