Destruction of Cork’s historic core

Ahh, poor show! That was always an impressive Georgian ‘wall’ on the south side of Castle Street. The two demolished facades were full of original windows & old glass.

They weren’t listed, no? Why did they collapse? If PP for complete demoltion was refused, did they get PP for something else, like facade retention? Had some work been going on in them before they collapsed?

i agree some of the incidents you mention in the initial post are highly dubious, but i was talking to someone about this today. i know this information is third hand but i’ll post it here anyway, and you can make of it what you wish:

1. he said that he knew someone working on the site a few weeks ago who said that the buildings were highly unstable, and gaps/cracks were visibly increasing over the course of a few weeks. the houses were not sufficiently supported.

2. he said the same person was in the house the day it fell. they heard some noises and knew things were starting to shift, so they got out quick, just before the collapse.

i believe the man i was talking to, but didn’t know his source.
these imply 2 things:
a. the developer/builder was either cutting corners or not averse to having the buildings fall, because they failed to shore them up
b. if (a) is correct, they were extremely wreckless with their passers’-by and employees’ lives

There needs to be a serious look taken at all buildings (and sites) in the historic core, with improvements made to buildings immediately and then owners pursued for the bill.

e.g. The CYMS Hall at the corner of Castle Street and South Main Street;
The clothes store at he corner of Washington Street and South Main Street;
The Munster Furniture site(s) stretching from Grattan Street to North Main Street and associated lanes.

I believe that the Munster Furniture site is so large (taken with associated sites on Grattan Street) that an overall area plan needs to be rapidly undertaken.

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I note the Sir Henry’s/ Citi Car Park site is bedding down for good. Recent work has been undertaken to re-surface the carpark, ‘improve’ the quay wall with railings, etc – with the carpark now having doubled in size. The fine (listed) building facing onto Grand Parade, through the ground floor of which the car park is entered, is now roofless and POSSIBLY in the course of being renovated. None of this work, it is noted, has any sort of planning permission whatsoever!

I thought the CYMS hall had been recently renovated?

The state of the Mannix and Culhane store is a disgrace. It’s been like that for a decade now.

Here’s some nice footage of the collapse:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhvoOg05Mlg

Is that City Manager Joe Gavin who appears with a yellow hardhat at around 36/37 seconds? Or am I mistaken?

A planning application has been submitted for the Munster Furniture site and some neighbouring sites. More details later but the text of the application is below:

Togher Asset Holdings Limited

For development on lands bounded by North Main Street, Angel Lane, Gratton Street and Colemans Lane. The development will consist of the demolition of No 95 North Main Street, Cork and the retention and reconstruction of no 97 North Main Street, Cork (protected structure). Permission is sought for the construction of 1 no retail and 1 no convenience retail with ancillary services on the ground floor, including warehouse, plant room area, (external) staff areas, ESB substation, kitchen, bike stores and bin stores, 14 no apartments on the first floor, 14 no apartments on the second floor, 14 no apartments on the third floor, 12 no apartments on the fourth floor and 6 no apartments on the fifth floor. The total gross floor area of the development is: 8677 m2. There are to be flat wall mounted solar panels (72m2) on the southern elevation and external landscaped area on the first floor courtyard incorporating play area and all associated site development works.

Development Address: 93 – 97 North Main Street, Cork

good site + interesting development proposal. sounds like an aldi/lidl type opprtunity!

Some images of the proposed development on North Main Street, Angel Lane, Coleman’s Lane, Grattan Street. The applicants make it clear they are going for a ‘discount retailer model’ i.e. aldi or lidl.
Apart from some massive overdevelopment of the site and a poor enough treatment of the North Main street facade, it has some promise.

View from North Main Street:

View from above North main Street:

View of Grattan Street facade and arial view:

Hot on the heels of the plans for North Main Street, City properties have lodged plans for the ‘reinstatement’ of the two demolished buildings on Castle Street. I must say, this application comes pretty soon after the event – good in terms of not allowing the site to lie idle for too long.
The planning application comes so fast though, one would almost think they suspected something like this might happen….details of application below.

City Properties (Cork) Ltd
for the reinstatement of 2 no 4 storey buildings at nos 7 & 8 Castle Street to provide 2 no retail units (gross floor area of 268 sqm) at ground floor/mezzanine level, including internal alterations to existing ground floor layout and alterations to front elevation to include repositioning of entrance and provision of new shopfronts, change of use of first, second and third floors from storage to residential use, and comprising 3 no one bedroom and 3 no two bedroom apartments as permitted under planning reference number 08/33035. The development is to take place on the site of 7 & 8 Castle Street which were protected structures that collapsed on Thursday 27th August 2009

Togher Asset’s application for North Main Street and Grattan Street (see images above) has been refused by CCC.

In a very firn refusal, matters such as the archaeological importance of the site, the protected nature of some of the buildings, the overdevelopment of the site was highlighted.

Some more pictures of the demolished buildings on Castle Street, from the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage.
http://www.buildingsofireland.ie/niah/search.jsp?county=CO&name=castle+street&town=&townland=&type=quick&page=1

Notice that the lefthand building of the pair has no parapet (in common with its neighbour) and the righthand building has a parapet (in common with its neighbour).
It was a condition of the grant of permission that the design of the replacement facades should match this and not (as the developers suggested) that the two replacements should match each other.

@jungle wrote:

I thought the CYMS hall had been recently renovated?

The state of the Mannix and Culhane store is a disgrace. It’s been like that for a decade now.

I agree, it’s utterly ridiculous that that building hasn’t been repaired. It looks like a WWII bomb hit it or something!

I honestly wonder why some of these buildings weren’t sold during the boom. It doesn’t make sense as they have to have been quite valuable. Instead, they seem to house very old / failing businesses that cannot even manage to keep up the exterior of their premises.

There are quite a lot of buildings in the centre of Cork like that, teetering on the brink of complete dilapidation.

The area that worries me at the moment is all of those buildings along the Grand Parade which are unoccupied due to developer-purchase. I would hate to see them becoming derelict pending redevelopment. They really ought to lease them out in the interim if they do not intend to develop them a.s.a.p.