Kiel breaks ground for third passenger terminal

The new terminal, designed by architects KSP Engel und Zimmermann, will take 14 months to build. The impressive 12 storey, 46m high central building will boast 12,000 m2 of space, 1,100 m2 on the passenger level. The building is due for completion by 23 December next year. Operational areas will be ready by April 2010, in time for the cruise and ferry season.

Angela Volquartz, Lord Mayor of Kiel, said the terminal, which will join the new Ostseekai Cruise Terminal and the Norwegenkai ferry facility, will be ‘an architectural landmark for Kiel and of great economic significance for our port’. Ulrich Kock of Stena Line, the main user of the terminal for its Germany – Sweden ferry operations, said it ‘creates the conditions for the further development of liner services’.

Schwedenkai is being built to the south of and adjacent to the existing terminal and will also have a walkway link to the adjacent Bollhörnkai-Nord. It will line up with Kiel’s Hafenstrasse and the Holstenbrücke, thus optically opening up the Kiel City Centre to the Bay of Kiel.

The terminal building will combine services for passengers and cargo on its lower levels with administrative functions on the office levels above. Port of Kiel MD Dirk Claus said, ‘The decision to erect a new building on the Schwedenkai with more space was based on pure economic considerations. By comparison, a renovation of the old building would not have been economical.’

In charge of the construction is the Seehafen Kiel. Doing the building are the firms Bernd Hagen, Holzfluxx Tischlerei, Gebrüder Neumann, Klusemann Elektrotechnik and Norbert Szupryczynski Tiefbau.

By Tom Todd