Kiruna's new center emerges

In addition to businesses and shops, the new upper secondary school has opened. Housing has been built, including a new high-rise area below Luossavaara. The railway has been rerouted to a new railway station. 19 cultural buildings have been relocated.

The new town hall, Kristallen, was completed in 2018. In addition to municipal activities, it houses a county art museum. Three years later, Kiruna's new cultural center Aurora was erected on the adjacent plot. In 2022, the new Scandic hotel, heir to the classic Ferrum in the old city center, opened.

In September 2022, the new center was inaugurated, which in recent years has gained more and more life and content. But there are still many buildings to be completed and more businesses and cultural buildings to be relocated, including the church. Kiruna's new center is still largely a construction site.

In connection with the inauguration last weekend, there was a cinema premiere in Aurora Culture & Congress and a temporary nightclub opened.

"We started a new era in Kiruna with the opening a year ago, and there was a big celebration. Now a year has passed and Kiruna's center deserves an anniversary", said Mikael Westerlund, Chief of Staff at LKAB Samhällsomvandling (societal transformation), in connection with the one-year anniversary.

The reason why the center must be moved is the expansion of LKAB´mine. The world's largest underground iron ore mine is expanding under the town and undermining parts of old Kiruna.

Lennart Håkansson

editor@northswedenbusiness.com