After delays, the arena and the adjacent mixed use high-rise development got a final approval and construction began in January 2018. The final plan calls for a deck to be built over a railway line. This deck will have the multi-purpose arena (at least 13,455 seats), offices, commercial development, housing, a hotel and a casino. The overall vision was designed by
Daniel Libeskind. The arena was completed by December 2021, in time for the
2022 IIHF World Championship. The rest of the development is to be completed by 2024. Casino Tampere will also open in connection with the arena, and according to preliminary plans, the casino will employ about 80 people. opened a
luxury hotel called Lapland Hotels Arena next to the arena on 12 December 2021. (yellow and green) and
Tappara (blue and orange) on December 3, 2021 at Nokia Arena In March 2020, it was announced that, under a ten-year sponsorship agreement with the UROS Group in
Oulu, the arena would be called "UROS LIVE". The naming caused a small scale scandal due to name's overly masculine tone, as means "male" in Finnish. The agreement was terminated on 28 October 2021 due to Uros Oy's financial problems, and the name of the arena was changed as a result.
Nokia Corporation was chosen as the new sponsor on 19 November 2021, and the arena was renamed as "Nokia Arena". The first scheduled events in the arena were the local matches of the
Finnish Championship League on 3 and 4 December 2021. It was originally scheduled to open on 15 December, but later the official opening was brought forward to 3 December. ==Events==