Target Turku, the Nordic growth engine
The Finnish city offers a combination of growth potential with economic density, making it attractive to overseas and domestic investors alike.
Institutional investors looking to identify future opportunities at Mipim often face a binary choice: the safety of established capitals or the higher returns of secondary markets. Turku, Finland’s oldest city and former capital, is rapidly dismantling this trade-off. By combining the economic density of a capital with the aggressive growth trajectory of a challenger city, Turku offers a compelling target for commercial real estate investment.
The city is currently executing a masterplan that prioritises scale, connectivity and resilience. With a development pipeline extending into the 2070s, supported by major infrastructure investments,
Turku is not just a collection of assets, but a cohesive, investable ecosystem built on solid economic foundations and long-term ambition.
A recurring challenge for institutional investments in secondary markets is the lack of scale. Investors need ticket sizes that move the needle. Turku addresses this through massive, coordinated urban development projects that create large, investable stock rather than piecemeal opportunities.
Turku Science Park and Waterfront District
The most significant driver underpinning Turku’s real estate resilience is its highly specialised economy, particularly in the life-sciences and health technology sectors.
Turku Science Park is the crown jewel in the city’s commercial strategy. Already a hub for 400 organisations and 26,000 jobs, the area is undergoing a transformation into a mixed-use district encompassing 900,000
sq m of gross floor area (GFA). This consists of circa 10,000 apartments for 16,000 residents, 250,000 sq m GFA of commercial premises and 70,000 sq m GFA of public buildings that offer premises for more than 18,000 employees.
With established strength in diagnostics, women’s health tech and artificial intelligence, demand for both specialised office/laboratory spaces and high-quality apartments is rising in Turku’s science cluster. This is further cemented by the presence of four higher education institutions with a total of around 40,000 students. This permanent student presence ensures constant demand in the rental market, while the high-value, research-intensive careers created by the life-sciences cluster underpins sustained demand from highly paid professionals.
Moving from the science hub to the harbour, the Linnanniemi project is one of the most ambitious waterfront redevelopments in Northern Europe. The city aims to attract 2,000 new residents and develop some 120 000 sq m of GFA in the district.
For investors, these are not speculative plays but strategic priorities that offer the volume required for significant capital deployment.
Sector diversity and ESG
Turku is the centre of Finland’s pharmaceutical industry, responsible for an estimated 75% of the country’s total pharmaceutical exports. The presence of industry giants like Bayer and a cluster of diagnostics companies creates a high-value tenant base that is resistant to economic cycles. Life sciences companies invest heavily in their physical footprint (labs, clean rooms), leading to longer leases and lower churn.
The city is also a global leader in shipbuilding, with many of the biggest cruise ships in the world constructed at the Meyer Turku shipyard. Collaborating with more than 1,500 specialised suppliers in a high-tech ecosystem, Meyer Turku excels in highly complex projects, pioneering the transition towards net-zero maritime travel through green fuels and digital innovation. A long-term agreement signed this year with Royal Caribbean has secured another decade of construction projects.
Tourism and leisure offer further untapped potential, particularly across the region’s 40,000-island archipelago. With increasing international interest in the Scandinavian leisure scene, the area presents many possibilities for sustainable hospitality and leisure projects, serving the tourism needs of a growing population alongside global visitors and underpinned by year-round demand from business travellers.
Turku is also at the forefront of sustainability, aiming to be carbon-neutral by 2029 and climate-positive thereafter. This focus on green development ensures that new and renovated properties meet the highest modern standards and future-proofs assets against changing environmental regulations and tenant preferences.
Infrastructure and connectivity
Another indicator that Turku is a long-term growth prospect is the level of investment into the infrastructure that will support citywide, cross-sector expansion. Predictability is a key value driver for real estate – rail investments being the most influential. With predictable tenant demand the perceived risk of the location, and property values in the well-connected districts, such as the Science Park, tend to appreciate.
Turku is currently at the centre of a rail revolution, exemplified by the West Railway project. This high-speed rail link will slash travel times between Turku and Helsinki, effectively integrating Turku into the Greater Helsinki commuter belt.
Turku is also advancing a tram proposal and finishing an inter-city dual track to strengthen connectivity across the city. These plans will be complemented by new bus routes and an expanded network of cycle paths and pedestrian routes.
The proposed Nordic rail link would connect Helsinki, Stockholm and Copenhagen, with a potential extension to Oslo and a stop in Turku. This project has the potential to significantly strengthen economic ties across the region, enhance connectivity, and drive growth for the cities involved, with Turku positioned to benefit substantially.
Meanwhile, in the port, a new ferry terminal ensures that Turku remains the primary logistics gateway to Sweden and beyond to Western Europe, underpinning industrial and logistics demand.
Cultural investment and liveability
A city’s resilience – its ability to bounce back from external shocks – depends on its liveability and cultural gravity. People do not leave cities they love.
Turku is doubling down on this “soft power” with the Fuuga concert hall, a €90m-plus investment on the banks of the Aura River. This strategic asset will anchor the cultural riverside promenade. Cultural investments of this magnitude boost liveability, which is essential for the tech and life science companies looking to recruit and retain top talent. By cementing its status as a cultural capital, Turku ensures it remains a destination of choice for the highly skilled workforce that underpins property values.
Turku offers a rare convergence of safety and growth, benefiting from Finland’s enviable political stability and clear, low-risk legal frameworks for property ownership. The city possesses the economic fundamentals of a primary market – driven by a world-class life sciences cluster – and the upside potential of a developing urban node. With a clear pipeline of scalable projects, such as the Science Park and Waterfront District, and the ambition of achieving carbon neutrality in 2029, the city provides a structured and well-balanced pathway for real estate investments.
Investment opportunities in Turku
Turku is working with private investors to deliver exceptional mixed‑use developments that build on the city’s strong economic and cultural sectors and benefit from best‑in‑class transport infrastructure.
The City of Turku is an editorial partner of Real FDI
