Cornmarket St (De Coal Kay)

Old maps of Cork show that the Coal Quay was, in fact, part of what is now Lavitts Quay.
Lavitts Quay ran from Patrick Street to the junction of what is now Emmet Place (and was Nelson’s Place). the rest was the Coal Quay to the junction with Cornmarket Street’
I do not know when the ‘name change’ came about.

‘name change’ aside, i’m really eager to see this stretch of public domain used to it’s potential (finally) and I really, really hope they’re not going to dig it all up, repair some drainage then re-tarmac it all… it’d be no suprise. it’d be just like the CCC’s recent efforts as well, to take a good vision for the area, then cut all the good stuff to be left with a basic pave and paint solution… we’ve seen this shiz already with Patrick St, I really hope the CCC grows some balls and, more importantly, the ability to decipher a hawk from a handsaw on the issue of public realm design, vis. integrated temporary market tent design. While it’s crucial to make this place a space that will appeal to the wider population of the city, it’s also crucial to retain an element at least of the folk who traditionally populate the area – if it becomes too gentrified it’ll be spoilt. If they F**k this one up Cork will lose one more of it’s most promising features, and take another step closer to the bland typical international typology of cleanliness, international-shopping-brands and general soul-less-ness.

here’s a link to the CASP for the area;

http://www.corkcity.ie/ourservices/developmentplanning/localareaplans/cornmarketstreetareaactionplan/

here’s a link to the Cornmarket Centre’s ideas of the area;

http://www.irishandeuropean.ie/Cornmarket_centre_update_Jan_07.pdf

and a quote from Radioactiveman from elsewhere in this site;

While we’re on the subject of the Cornmarket Centre, I’ve managed to finally get some images of what the finished product will look like.
From a retail point of view, it’ll comprise 17 retail units on 2 floors over basement on a c.1.5 acre site comprising the old Guy and Co. site and St. Pauls Church. The development will offer units ranging from 93 to 3716 sq.m for food fasion and entertainment uses.
There will be two large retail units at basement level (c. 1000 sq.m. each) along with parking for 66 cars.There will be five units facing on to Cornmarket Street at first floor level (the largest being 753 sq. m.). There will also be a mall area at this level with physical linkages to St.Pauls which will house a retail unit.There will be three retail units on a mezzane level with more on the second floor.
There are lots of rumours as to who is going to take some of the larger units, but they remain that at the moment. Irish and European are handling the retail letting.

I thought they were going with the glass covering for part of the street with the permanent market in this part…..it was in the echo so it must be true!! 😉

@Leesider wrote:

I thought they were going with the glass covering for part of the street with the permanent market in this part…..it was in the echo so it must be true!! 😉

Yes it was originally planned to have a permanent canopy however the businesses on the street along with the gardaí had some concerns about people climbing on top at night or winos hanging around underneat which makes sense.
There will now be temporary demountable stands.

@barneymagee wrote:

Yes it was originally planned to have a permanent canopy however the businesses on the street along with the gardaí had some concerns about people climbing on top at night or winos hanging around underneat which makes sense.
There will now be temporary demountable stands.

Makes sense as well considering most of the stalls will only be operational over the weekend. It will good to see that street tidied up though, pity the hotel isn’t going ahead down by the river to block off the car park it would have transformed that area but this is a great start and as much as the corpo can do.

I’ve been out of the country for nearly a year now, and I had just assumed nothing would happen with the street for years, until I saw this today on another forum. It doesn’t really give much of an impression of how the finished product will look, but it’s encouraging to see some serious work being done at least.
It’s a grand, wide, open street and I imagine it will look ten times better when it’s not just a patchwork of uneven footpaths, potholes and gravel. It would be great if some enterprising party could tackle the derelict infill site / car park and maybe even have a go at bringing some commercial life to the adjacent alley. And unless it’s been done in the mean time, I’d love to see the Loft show some civic pride and clean/restore the limestone frontage as their neighbours have done – it makes a huge difference.

Ah, here’s what I mean about cleaning the stonework:

See the difference between the Coal Quay bar on the left and the rest of the facade?

And a proposal for the derelict site I mentioned: https://archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=7662

@bosco wrote:

I’d love to see the Loft show some civic pride and clean/restore the limestone frontage as their neighbours have done – it makes a huge difference.

I think there needs to be a law to compel owners to maintain their properties, even if the council does it and claims the money back. The Derelict Sites law only allows them to take over almost decrepid buildings.

There is a law for listed buildings which means the owners can be forced to maintain them to a certain standard. Perhaps that could be expanded to cover all buildings.

Using that building as a carpet warehouse is such a waste. And with the difficulties with vehicular acess, it’s not even a particularly appropriate use.

I bet the owners are gutted that they didn’t sell up three or four years ago.

did they cut away the original stonework to insert that large rectangular opening on the right hand side? it certainly looks that way…? if they did it’s a real shame, it’s a very strong facade otherwise.

They did.

Although, in fairness to the current owners, they weren’t responsible.

It was done in the 1970s when a cash and carry was operating in the building.

To be fair to the owners they wanted to clean the stone around 2 years ago but were stopped by the corpo…….let me find out the exact reasons for that and will post it when I meet a man about a dog later 😉

Anyone have up to date photos of how far they are after progressing on this??

@Leesider wrote:

Anyone have up to date photos of how far they are after progressing on this??

Don’t have photos, sorry, but can describe it for anyone who hasn’t seen it in progress.

The plan seems to be similar to Patrick St./Grand Parade. The paths are being expanded in width in order to narrow the roadway to a constant width along the length of the ‘quay’ (just wide enough for one lane either way). The path along the East side is relatively narrow and fixed in width, while the pathway on the other side will probably vary in width more.

The paths are paved similarly to the other streets, the roadway is tarmaced, and there seems to be a paved margin along the roadway on the West side, similar to on Patrick St.

@who_me wrote:

Don’t have photos, sorry, but can describe it for anyone who hasn’t seen it in progress.

The plan seems to be similar to Patrick St./Grand Parade. The paths are being expanded in width in order to narrow the roadway to a constant width along the length of the ‘quay’ (just wide enough for one lane either way). The path along the East side is relatively narrow and fixed in width, while the pathway on the other side will probably vary in width more.

The paths are paved similarly to the other streets, the roadway is tarmaced, and there seems to be a paved margin along the roadway on the West side, similar to on Patrick St.

Thanks for that, any idea on what kind of lighting they are putting in?

@Leesider wrote:

Thanks for that, any idea on what kind of lighting they are putting in?

There’s nothing there yet, but given the similarities with Patrick St. and Grand Parade, it’s almost certain to be one of those two styles (Pitmit or Flannery), don’t know which, sorry.

I’m also curious about the stalls which were in the plan – I’m not sure if there’s room on the path on the East side for them, so are they going to be temporary structures on the roadway , with the roadway being closed. Or just semi-permanent stalls on the West side, on the paved road margin.

This isn’t too far from completion now, looks good. It still looks a little bare without the lights/street furniture, but should look great once done. There are some nice buildings along that street, the Cornstore/Loft building (which now has finally had the shrubs/bushes/small trees removed from it!!), the Bodega, the Bridewell Garda station, the Corkmarket centre (the lower half, at least), and even the Roundy pub at the end looks good.

For some reason I’m not sure of – the footpath is inconsistent along the West side. Level, then a step down by the Bodega. At the Cornstore the path slopes down to road level. And at the corner the footpath slopes sharply upwards – awkward to stand on. Is that the point?

Also, a correction to my post above, there’s just one lane of traffic, with another paved ‘lane’ for setdowns/taxis presumably.

A bit surprising too, the works only go as far as Kyle’s St., not around the ‘kink’. I hadn’t realised that previously.

@who_me wrote:

A bit surprising too, the works only go as far as Kyle’s St., not around the ‘kink’. I hadn’t realised that previously.

The work from Kyle Street around to the Coal Quay will carry on in Phase II. I think that starts in October. Funding is in place for it but it won’t be finished until the next year. Work will stop over the Christmas period. I presume it will just continue the same style from the other half of the street.

who actually designed the new street paving?

i was asking one of the builders on-site the other day about phase II, he was saying that the carriageway along the front of Guy’s will continue out to the Quay, while a second carriageway will extend parallel to this one connecting Kyel st. to the Quay, forming a paved island in between, stretching from outside the garda station to the quayside… this seems like a duplication – why not just extend the Guy’s side passage to meet the Kyle St one, then extend to the Quay from there?

does anyone have a plan of the finished design?

… Beth Gali, duh – she’ll have repaved every street in Cork soon.

here’s a pdf of the overall plan if anyone’s interested

http://www.bethgali.com/2006%20CORK%20-%20CONCURS%20CORNMARKET%20(ENG).pdf

@Yossarian wrote:

who actually designed the new street paving?

i was asking one of the builders on-site the other day about phase II, he was saying that the carriageway along the front of Guy’s will continue out to the Quay, while a second carriageway will extend parallel to this one connecting Kyel st. to the Quay, forming a paved island in between, stretching from outside the garda station to the quayside… this seems like a duplication – why not just extend the Guy’s side passage to meet the Kyle St one, then extend to the Quay from there?

does anyone have a plan of the finished design?

I suspect the answer is that the Guy’s side passage will be one-way Northbound, while the Bridewell side one will be one way Southbound. If they merged into one road, the traffic would have to cross each other to end up on the correct side of the road. By having them separated, they operate as two different one-way streets.

I don’t know if there was any real need to maintain the vehicle access to Kyle St though. It will just encourage people to use North Main St as a through road. Crossing the city Northside to Southside is no real problem and North Main St doesn’t have to come into it. Unfortunately, there are so few routes Southside to Northside that full pedestrianisation of the Coal Quay is not practical.

I’d imagine access is required to Kyle street for the Dunnes Stores loading bay located on that street. you could access it via north main street, but then as you say it would encourage the use of the street as a thoroughfare… shame they can’t pedestrianise it.

@barneymagee wrote:

The work from Kyle Street around to the Coal Quay will carry on in Phase II. I think that starts in October. Funding is in place for it but it won’t be finished until the next year. Work will stop over the Christmas period. I presume it will just continue the same style from the other half of the street.

Thanks.

I was surprised to see the trees go in, as the Cornmarket St/Coal Quay has been quite an open area as long as I remember it. Is the plan still to have stalls along the street?

Also, the street lights on the East side seem to be a new style neither Flannery nor Pitmit. They seem to be just very tall, slender poles; though the actual lamps aren’t installed yet, so we’ll see.

Any chance of some pictures? 😀

Yea the traders are expected back when the current work finishes. Probably the end of the month although I did see the mobile phone accessories guy there yesterday. (Thursday)

According to the artists impression posters up on the street it suggests there will be new canopies but I think this has been stalled. The businesses and the traders had concerns so I think its a wait and see on a possible canopy.

I hear that the Bridewell has been declared unfit for purpose as a garda station.

Of course, it gets a temporary reprieve as it’s the only city centre garda station with cells in it.

This could be interesting in terms of the street development. Will we see a new garda station on the site? Will we get a complete overhaul of the existing building? Will the gardai just close it? If so, what happens to the site?

Of course, a lot will depend on currently available central government funding.

Does anyone know if the building is listed? I had heard previously that it is.

Was on Coal Quay at lunch time. Will be nice when finished (ie. once works materials, fencing etc is removed and once the works vehicles parked on the site are removed). No idea yet of lighting – just poles still. Interesting though to see how adjacent businesses are responding. The Cornstore seem to have widened their outside eating area to avail of the new wider footpath – works very well and looks nice. The Bodega however have put in place (not sure how recent this is) Carlsberg sponsored green awnings bearing the name “Bodega”. They look awful and completely out of place on a lovely building.

they didn’t really offend me, those awnings. i just look forward to seeing the rest of the local businesses sort their acts out, the majority of signage and general upkeep of the facades needs to be drastically improved. also, if there’s to be no movement on the pair of vacant sites adjacent to the loft, i’d love to see them surfaced and used for something.

I’m guessing the lamps will be like those on Anglesea St; or as seen here in the plans for Academy St.

They also have these on Opera Lane itself, on the buildings rather than than on posts (as you can see on the right-hand side of this image).

Last time by this area, there were piles of paving stones newly deposited at the Northern end – it looks like the second phase of this is going ahead! Good to see.

Hi, does anyone have photos of how all of this progressing?? Haven’t been home since September so not sure what it looks like now. Cheers

I’ll try to grab some photos later in the week, if no one else beats me to it. Phase 1 looks good, but the old broken down stalls there don’t really fit in. Phase 2 has started and is flying along. I don’t know what the final plan is regarding the canopy or semi-permanent stalls.

Good man who_me, it would great if you can get a few photos up!

Apologies! I mean to post these a LOT sooner. They’re not great (taken on a phone) but better than nothing!

The view from near the Roundy, looking North. The Cornstore and Bodega are using the wider footpath for tables/smoking areas.

The top of Kyle St. You can see the new road layout here, with the Cornmarket and Kyle St lanes now being separated.

The Bridewell station; looks much better with the new pavement; and as you can see here it extends around onto Kyrl’s St.

Thanks for the pictures, the street looks great!

Thanks for the photos, looks good, going to see it in the flesh next month when I am back for a couple of weeks!