Alto Vetro, grand canal docks, dublin

At least it’s presentable and looks a bit more solid and impressive than some of the 90’s office blocks along the Liffey, that look they’ve been bought and self-assembled from Ikea.

But I guess we’re going to have to wait until the money returns in 2013+ before, under the new high rise policy, the decent projects proposed in the last 5 or 6 years can actually go ahead/be completed.

@thebig C wrote:

So true!! The bland proposals sail through planning because, by their very nature imaginative, daring and ambitious projects attract all the attention. Attention=objections!

What else do you expect in such a location? The Gherkin it is not and it never pretended to be. It’s a bulky corporate office block. It’s situated beside a DART station in a cluster of knowledge-based company headquarters. To me, that’s a step in the right direction. If i was a large Multinational looking to locate in Dublin i’d have my eyes on it.

Are you 100% sure about this? The building is nearly finished. They should at least complete the facade to stop us ending up with another shell foreign journalists can gawk at to show what a state our property market is in.

@The Denouncer wrote:

Yes take a look yourself, building is empty no work taking place. They let 1 guy in to collect their tools. What a crying shame, it was starting to look the business.

strange that the architects weren’t aware of it – unless they’ve been told to deny everything that is. one guy to collect tools for the whole building??????? must have been a wiry young buck

There were people working on it when i passed on the DART this morning

Yes there is about 10 of the workers in there today I have been told

There is the same amount of work going on on Montevetro today as there has been for the past few months, working slowly but steadily on glazing and fit out.

NAMA, like any other lender, would need a court order to repossess the security for a loan. It also strikes me as unlikely that a lender would seek to repossess and stop work on a substantially complete office building beside a DART station – something that stands a passable chance of earning enough to repay the loan in the near future if it is completed.

@The Denouncer wrote:

they were all gather outside at the Spar in the morning

Sounds like business as usual to me 🙂

@Global Citizen wrote:

Good point.
Newsnight (BBC2) and Channel 4 News seem to have endless footage of the doomed Anglo HQ which they reel out whenever the get the opportunity. Its getting annoying.

Lol I’d use it.If you want to sum up the financial collapse and the building bust in one image…

I totally agree; certain media elements in the UK seem to highlight the problems of corporate Ireland in a disproportionate manner to the sums involved. Leaving a half finished office building right next to a DART station would send out exactly the wrong message on planning grounds if nothing else. You would imagine that the warrantees go both ways on this so the lender will have to pay the contractor unless there is a clear defect in the construction; a scenario I very much doubt exists . If that funder is Anglo there would be no benefit to the taxpayer in paying out for an incomplete building. Looking at Google’s recent results there may be some very localised demand.