US Real Estate is building a new office building Golden Gate on the property at 6 Ahtri Street, and therefore 7 high-value 12-metre Serbian spruce trees had to be replanted in the new location. Two trees were moved to the Park Tondi property in the park next to the FORUS Sports Centre Tondi and five trees to the Tallinn Zoo.
“We want to develop our real estate in the most environmentally friendly way possible, and not every construction project has to mean immediate felling, so it was important for us to offer the beautiful fir trees on the plot a new lease of life in a new location,” said Tarmo Pohlak, Director of Construction at US Real Estate. “We are creating a new landscaping project for the Ahtri Street plot, with new trees that will fit into the urban space.”
The replanting of the 12-metre Serbian spruces is a prerequisite for the professional excavation of the trees. The fir trees must be removed from their existing position with a root ball as large as possible, but with a horizontal diameter of at least two metres and a depth of at least one metre.
“However, Serbian spruces are a very capricious species for replanting and require proper and professional care after planting,” added Tarmo Pohlak. “We ordered special equipment from Lithuania for replanting the tall trees, as there is no machine in Estonia and Latvia that can do the job.”
“We are delighted that the five Serbian spruces were brought to the Tallinn Zoo, where they will fit in nicely with the mammoth sculpture created this year by students of the ceramics department of the Estonian Academy of Arts,” said Hannes Maripuu, head keeper of the Tallinn Zoo.
US Real Estate bought the Ahtri 6 property at the end of 2021 and will build one of Tallinn’s most prominent office buildings, Golden Gate. For this purpose, the hangar between the two carriageways of Ahtri Street and the former car wash were demolished. Historic walls and a chimney will remain on the site and will be architecturally linked to the new building. The Golden Gate building will be completed at the end of 2024.
An important challenge in the construction of the Golden Gate office building will be to comply with LEED certification requirements to ensure that the new office building is designed, built and maintained in an environmentally sustainable manner.