At the junction of Przymorze and Oliwa, more office buildings are springing up like mushrooms after the rain. In Gdansk we are happy about these investments, because they bring jobs and new residents. The snag is that the development in this part of the city is chaotic. And the biggest problems are transportation problems and spatial miscellany.
Business street of the Tri-City - this is how the part of Grunwaldzka Avenue running through Oliwa, near the University of Gdansk, is referred to. It is estimated that nearly sixteen thousand people now work in the two largest office parks alone. Some consider this part of the city to be the Tri-City version of Warsaw's "Mordor."
And it started innocently enough: in 2009 the city announced a competition for developers "Apartment for Land", as a result of which an attractive three-hectare plot of land was handed over to businessman Maciej Grabski in exchange for two hundred and twenty-one council apartments. In this way, the Olivia Business Center complex, now comprising seven buildings (its area is about one hundred and twenty thousand square meters), began to emerge. Across the street, closer to the Rapid Urban Rail stop, five office towers sprouted up. These are the Alchemia office center. After the construction of the last building, named Neon, it will have one hundred and twelve thousand square meters of office space.
The business street of the Tri-City - this is how the part of Grunwaldzka Avenue running through Oliwa, near the University of Gdansk, where nearly sixteen thousand people currently work in the two largest office parks, is referred to
photo: Ewa Karendys
Attraction or audacity?
Although, as more buildings are built, one can see that designers are more concerned about their quality (the buildings are gaining certificates and the employees are getting better public spaces), this is still typical utilitarian office architecture. But could anything more be expected from investors operating in business real estate?
Among the buildings, the record holder is the 156-meter-high Olivia Star, whose construction was completed in 2018. It is the tallest building in northern Poland. Its height could not remain without an impact on the landscape of the Tri-City. It quickly became apparent that the tower can be seen in unexpected locations, and not just neighboring neighborhoods. For example, it appears in the axis of Grunwaldzka Avenue, and when we drive along Spacerowa Street to Oliwa, the skyscraper surprises us in the panorama of Oliwa Cathedral. It can be seen even from... the pier in Gdynia Orlowo, which is nearly nine kilometers away in a straight line. Is it a diversification and an interesting dominant highlighting the development of Gdansk, or does it audaciously intrude on the landscape? Opinions are divided.
A 156-meter-high Olivia Star towers over the Olivia Business Center office complex.
photo: Ewa Karendys
The neighborhood can also be debated. Although the office development was built on a main thoroughfare, on the other side of it is the historic Old Oliva neighborhood. Those who don't mind the location of the Tri-City Mordor say that the tall buildings are offset from the old buildings. But the spatial clamor can be observed from the observation tower of Pacholek Hill rising a hundred meters above sea level. Modern office buildings, pushing past low-rise buildings and the red roofs of old tenements, look alien in the landscape.
a swirl of activity
Office investments bring new jobs and development to the area in which they are built. The assumptions that it was on the border of two districts, Przymorze and Oliwa, that an office basin would be created, were not wrong. After all, where to build if not here, near the SKM station, adjacent to a major artery? But at some point, urban planning got out of hand for the authorities. The biggest problem of Grunwaldzka Avenue today is the lack of order and the fact that the traffic infrastructure - despite the rapid development of the district - has hardly changed at all.
The landscape at the junction of Przymorze and Oliwa is not only office buildings. Along Grunwaldzka Avenue, ugly commercial and service pavilions are scattered. Nearby is the campus of the University of Gdansk. The vision of opening up the university space has ended in failure. One of the main sins of the campus is the fencing, and there has also been much controversy over the installation of barriers, which, although they were supposed to save from a deluge of cars belonging to office workers, fence off the urban fabric. Olivia Business Center is also directly adjacent to the architecturally distinctive Olivia Hall, built back in the 1970s. And the space in front of it and in front of the University of Gdansk Library is disfigured by large parking lots. The result? One big chaos.
Olivia Business Center is directly adjacent to the architecturally distinctive Olivia Hall, built back in the 1970s
photo: Ewa Karendys
Office buildings are growing, communications are stagnant
Of course, it's impossible to forget the benefits, such as the service establishments that have sprung up alongside the office investments and also serve the local community. Alchemy's developer went a step further and built public swimming pools. An interesting attraction is the observation deck open on the thirty-second floor of Olivia Star.
The snag is that local residents quickly felt the mostly negative effects of the office boom. It turned out that the existing infrastructure was far too little. The streets of Old Oliva were flooded with cars of corporate employees, and residents had to ask officials to set up parking meters so that the cars of office workers would stop pounding the neighborhood sidewalks.
How inept and unresponsive to current needs Tri-City transportation is, was exposed by the introduction of the Mevo metropolitan bicycle system - already in the first days of its operation most bicycles arrived just outside the office centers in Oliva
photo: Ewa Karendys
As more office space was added, the nuisances grew. How inept and unresponsive to current needs communication is, was exposed by the introduction of the Mevo metropolitan bicycle system to the Tri-City. Already in the first days of its operation, the largest number of bicycles went down right here, under the office centers in Oliva.
The lack of a pedestrian crossing on Grunwaldzka Avenue, at the level of Olivia Business Center, also proved for a long time that transportation, including pedestrians, is not a priority for the city authorities. Although demands for its delineation have been heard for several years, it came into existence only in October this year.
more than self-interest
The conclusions are simple: in order for the "business street of the Tri-City" to truly be its showcase, a lot of effort is still needed, as well as a much greater commitment from the authorities and a broader view of investors, going beyond the contours of their own plot.
{AuthorAiB}
journalist for "Gazeta Wyborcza Trójmiasto"
