Koli National Park to attract international nature tourism
MEK Koli’s magnificent scenery has been portrayed in Finnish art since the 19th Century.The brand new activity and service centre designed for Koli National Park will be built to meet the needs of international nature tourism. The project has been boosted by an architectural competition organized by the City of Lieksa. Two of the competition's winning designs are taken into consideration in the implementation of the project.
- Our aim is to get closer to the current megatrend of international nature tourism. As a whole, the environment here is well designed from the viewpoint of its basic values, says an initiator of the project, Ari Uusikangas, in the regional Karjalan Maa -newspaper.
The winner of the architectural competition was JKMM Architects' proposal "Louhi", referring to the queen of the land known as Pohjola in the Finnish mythology. A distinction in the competition was given to the Architecture Agency Harris-Kjisiki's work "Purnukka".
The activity and service centre is being developed at the foot of Ukki-Koli -mountain. The centre will contain a high-class camp site, hiking hotel and duplexes, which will be marketed both as holiday shares and traditional holiday destinations.
The investment costs of the project have been estimated to 40 million Euros and the building could be started in about three years after the planning phase is completed. Once ready, the service centre can generate up to a hundred new jobs at Koli.
