SBB Skellefteå Perseus 6 AB

The loan has been granted to finance the construction of the Sara Cultural Centre in Skellefteå, northern Sweden.

The 80-metre-tall multifunctional building houses six theatre stages, two art galleries and the city library alongside a conference centre, hotel and restaurants.

The building has 26,000 square metres of lettable area, and has been constructed using locally sourced wood.  The construction is certified ‘Gold’ in accordance with the Swedish green building standard Miljöbyggnad. The building was completed at the end of 2021.

The borrower, SBB Skellefteå Perseus 6 AB, is owned by Samhällsbyggnadsbolaget i Norden AB, a Swedish real estate company that focuses on the long-term ownership, management and development of rent-controlled residential properties in Sweden and social infrastructure properties in the Nordics. The Sara Cultural Centre is leased to Skellefteå municipality for a period of 50 years.

Productivity:

The Sara Cultural Centre is a new hub with advanced facilities for art, library services, concerts and theatre as well as new hotel capacity in Skellefteå. The construction benefits regional development with increased capacity and improved access to social infrastructure.

The building itself can be considered a reference case made of locally sourced cross-laminated and glue-laminated timber, providing new jobs and by adding value to forest assets.

Currently, a societal transformation is ongoing at all levels in Skellefteå due to the largest industrial establishment in decades in the Västerbotten region. The Northvolt battery factory, located in Skellefteå, has turned the development of the municipality and created a construction boom, fostered investments in infrastructure as well as establishment and expansion of commercial activities.

The population of Skellefteå is estimated to increase by up to 30 percent until 2030. Consequently, there is a shortage of housing and other infrastructure.

Environment:

The Sara Cultural Centre is a dual-purpose building, available for both public and commercial use. It is certified level Gold in accordance with the Swedish green building standard Miljöbyggnad, which is the highest certification class in this sustainability performance evaluation system for buildings.

The main environmental benefits derive from the carbon sequestration by using timber in the construction elements. Compared to conventional new buildings of this size, greenhouse gas emissions for the Sara Cultural Centre lifetime are less than half, and by taking the sequestration into consideration, the building is almost carbon neutral.

The building’s energy demand is approximately 2.6 GWh per year. The building uses energy efficient technology and hosts solar panel installations on its roof and facades. The solar cells are expected to generate 120 MWh of renewable energy per year.

Impact indicators:

Productivity:

• Increase in population in Skellefteå
• Number of visitors at the cultural centre
• Yearly occupancy rate at the hotel

Environment:

• Use of energy (kWh/m², y and MWh/y)
• On site generation of electricity (MWh/y)

No sustainability risks have been identified in relation to the project.

According to preliminary assessment, the building is fully aligned with the EU Taxonomy Technical Screen Criteria and partly aligned with the Do No Significant Harm criteria.

The timber structure is local, sourced from sustainable forests located within approximately a 200 km radius from the building site and processed in a sawmill approximately 50 km from the site. All wood has been checked with FSC / PEFC certificates.