Re: Re: ILAC centre

The new Ilac facade to Mary Street is very disappointing – essentially a blank wall fitted with the usual blank windows to relieve what is little other than a cliff face, and clad with the equally ubiquitous stone tiling – all of which can be neatly ripped off again in ten years time and replaced with the latest trend in urban wallpaper.
No attempt is even made to conceal the tiling for what it is, with lazy gapng joints everywhere and capped off with delightful silcone sealant :rolleyes:. The stone is also cheap and vulgar looking – the same Spanish style muck used in every shopping centre being built nowadays.

Some nice forms in the H&M section, but the Liffey Street end is very poor, and tops that street’s vista exceptionally poorly.

As for the demolished (with hopefully to be rebuilt facade…) Dunnes Stores on Henry Street, Dunnes are constructing what will be their flagship city centre store on the site as replacement to the current Ilac store on Moore Mall.
It will be over a huge four levels, featuring a ‘foodhall’, i.e. a supermarket :rolleyes:, a huge clothing area, and of course an expanded homewares section in all its beige ‘n brownness. It will be accessible from Henry Street and from the Ilac which it is going to entend into, consuming some of the existing units there. As if to make up for the loss, the existing shop in the Ilac is to be demolished and up to four large new units created from it. So big changes afoot.

Work is to get underway on the Moore Street facade in April I think, with all of the facade works of the whole building finished by Nov/Dec this year. Red and tan brick is already peeping through the scaffolding on Parnell Street…

Some pics of the facade to Henry/Mary/Liffey Streets: