Nordstan

During the emigration to America from the 1860s to the 1920s, the area of Nordstan was a lively part of city. Emigrants passed here between the Gothenburg Central Station and the ships waiting at the Port of Gothenburg to the west. The area where Nordstan is currently located is called Östra Nordstan (Eastern North city), as it was located north of the Great Canal and east of the Östra Hamngatan street, in opposite to Västra Nordstan (Western North city) located west of that street. However, in the 1960s the area of Östra Nordstaden was neglected and had become a slum. With the help of building companies and banks all of the old city blocks were acquired, with a total of 90 buildings. The construction of the Nordstan shopping centre began in 1967, over a part of the city previously neglected. Östra Nordstan was shortened to Nordstan when the shopping centre was opened. Most of the current Nordstan was finished by 1972. At its time, the construction of the shopping centre was Sweden's largest ever city renovation project. By 2006, Nordstan had gone through a major renovation to make it more attractive. City blocks and houses were linked together with a common roof. The cost for the renovation rose up to about 2.8 billion Swedish krona (in 2014 money) and was "the largest city renovation in Sweden" at the time. The entire project was organised by private construction companies and many Gothenburgian banks (most prominently by Skandinaviska banken, but also by Svenska Handelsbanken, Sveriges Kreditbank and Göteborgs Bank) but by 1984 the name was shortened to Nordstan. when the bottom floor of the parking hall was rebuilt to business use. It is also called Nya Gatan. On 11 December 1979 rollerskating was forbidden in Nordstadstorget. It had become a larger problem than what had been expected. From 2008 to 2009 large parts of the shopping centre were renovated. Åhléns opened a fourth floor, and a further 4000 square metres of business space were given available for Elgiganten and Stadium. This cost 60 million krona. Nordstan was for some time a hangout for street children with foreign backgrounds, from the suburbs of Gothenburg but also migrants from Morocco, Afghanistan and Syria, after the shops close at night. These gangs threatened shop keepers, traded drugs and fought with other gangs in the centre. Many of the unaccompanied minors hanging in the shopping centre have had several asylum applications rejected. ==Location and transportation==

Nordstan is located in Gothenburg's city centre, connected to the Gothenburg Central Station and the Nils Ericson Terminal by an underground pedestrian tunnel, and to the Lilla Bommen marina and the Gothenburg Opera house by sheltered walkways. The shopping centre also offers parking space to 2,700 cars. Just outside Nordstan are three different tram stops on three sides of the shopping center, making it easy to reach Nordstan by public transportation. A majority of the visitors use public transportation. If almost all of the visitors had used cars (as it is for many shopping centres outside city centres), around 8,000 parking places would be needed and this would need more parking space area than shop area. ==Description==

Nordstad is visited by 35 million people annually and has an annual revenue of 4 billion krona (2012). There are about 200 shops and restaurants as well as about 150 offices in the same complex. There are four floors for businesses in the shopping centre. The Nordstadstorget square is located in the middle of Nordstan, which is a large indoor space used for exhibitions and events. The department store Åhléns (opened on 27 March 1974) and the department store Femman, owned by Hufvudstaden, are located there. Femman consists of three floors of shops and five floors of offices. The shopping centre was opened in nine stages between 1972 and 1985. Under Christmas season 2004 the rush at the Nordstan parking hall was so great that instead of the normal capacity of 2700 cars, it was visited by 8000 cars per day. Many drivers had to queue for 1.5 hours to get out of the parking hall. The shopping centre had to call its security guards from Securitas to organise the traffic. On the same day in December 2004, the shopping centre was visited by 140 thousand customers. Other "flagship stores" include Lindex, which was opened as the company's first Brand Store in Nordstan in 2001, H&M, and the Spanish clothes store Desigual which opened its first store in Nordstan in 2010 with a sales area of 700 square metres. ==Ownership==

The complex is owned by a consortium of building companies. These include Vasakronan, Hufvudstaden, F O Peterson Söner Byggnads AB, Gösta Andersson Byggnadsfirma AB and Castellum AB, as well as the Nordstan building company. == See also ==