Massive regeneration planned for North Dublin (Coolock)

I know someone working on this project and apparently damn near everything is getting replaced except the abomination of a pub in the existing center’s carpark.
Shame really, it’s probably the thing there that most needs demolition!

(don’t quote me on this, as it may not be accurate, but:) something to do with the pub owner suddenly deciding they wanted to stay after going along with the earlier planning stages with no objections.

Maybe (cough) some compensation is being sought by him (takes out brown paper document container)…

Strange to see the article been started off with “16-storey tower for Northside centre site” when it seems to be a very small part of the overall development. Are they advocating high rise or ringing alarm bells…?

@Rory W wrote:

Maybe (cough) some compensation is being sought by him (takes out brown paper document container)…

I heard that he’d already been offered a considerable sum but declined.

I suspect the… eh… ‘businessmen’ running their ‘offices’ from here maybe had a say in the decision not to move.

@ctesiphon wrote:

I heard that he’d already been offered a considerable sum but declined.

I suspect the… eh… ‘businessmen’ running their ‘offices’ from here maybe had a say in the decision not to move.

I am told locally that this establishment is known for hosting meetings by certain fringe groups connected to eh the struggle for, let’s call it, Irish freedom. The crossword clue might read “Mixed up nail (4)”. Of course, this information may be untrue.

@cubix wrote:

Strange to see the article been started off with “16-storey tower for Northside centre site” when it seems to be a very small part of the overall development. Are they advocating high rise or ringing alarm bells…?

Stranger still to see them put it in Dublin 11, when it’s in Dublin 5.

Just been lookin at the application. No drawings up yet, but enough to know that this is utterly humungous. It’s almost Dundrum-esque in terms of impact. It will drastically change this area; one of the grimmest and most hostile suburban environments in Dublin. Should be great for the area.

Cue 2 year planning logjam…

AFAIK this is being delivered by a regen company called Urban Capital and by all accounts they are making a better fist at getting the diverse stakeholders on board than our more illustrious flagship regen organisations.Wouldn personally class it a particularly hostile suburban environment per se,(there’s a superquinn in ther amongst the pound shops for us more sophisticated D5 dwellers!) there’s alot worse out there, . There was also a massive application recently further up the Oscar Traynor abutting the N1. All welcome IMO but the transport implications are huge.

Dublin City Council has been actively pushing this, rezoning land in the industrial estate (or at least planning to) and planning a new access road to the M50 if memory serves

http://www.northsideshoppingcentre.ie/redevelopment.html

weehamster, thanks for the linkage to some decent detail on the possibilities. I really hope the city council get this one right; the area really needs a proper centre that can serve both commercial and community needs for the wider community.

Back a few years ago when I was more directly involved in things Dublin city council related, I used to try and point out that the whole of the Northside was very badly served in comparison to the southside by the lack of anything that remotely resembled a proper town or village centre in the entire area bounded by the four corners of Drumcondra to Finglas and Swords and Killester. No social centre or place that people would be likely to go for a night out and this feeds through to the feeling that the places are more dormitory places that you go from rather than go to.

It`s a gas really when one think`s about Drumcondra,Finglas,Killester and Swords,three decades ago all being very vibrant “Social Centres” in their own right.
Each of them even boasted their own Picture House….:eek: and the odd dance hall or bingo hall as well.

I would also venture to suggest that the level of “Community Spirit” or “Civic Awareness” which was then then commonplace in these Dublin Villages and Towns was coldly and completely obliterated by the crooked,mean spirited,self aggrandising political representatives who hijacked the entire planning and development process with a thoroughness that still reverberates today.

The destruction of these small community centred environs which had developed over centuries was accomplished in a flash by mohair suited savages who made certain that they built their own residences far from the nirvana`s they advocated.

Many of us can still recall the “Last Cottages”…those families or in many cases Individuals who stuck it out until they either died or were intimidated out of their homesteads by the encroaching tide of concrete and (bullet proof) glass.

This current application looks very attractive and on paper seems to offer so much to so many.
However,I still wonder at just how much sense of the Human many of these planners have and as yet I see nothing which even acknowledges the levels of Urban Dementia which the original and now deceased land barons bequeathed to us all…..
The best of luck to this new improved Coolock vision….It will be a struggle and an uphill one which needs more than concrete,brick and “Public Open Space” to address. :rolleyes:

@Alek Smart wrote:

It`s a gas really when one think`s about Drumcondra,Finglas,Killester and Swords,three decades ago all being very vibrant “Social Centres” in their own right.
Each of them even boasted their own Picture House….:eek: and the odd dance hall or bingo hall as well.

I would also venture to suggest that the level of “Community Spirit” or “Civic Awareness” which was then then commonplace in these Dublin Villages and Towns was coldly and completely obliterated by the crooked,mean spirited,self aggrandising political representatives who hijacked the entire planning and development process with a thoroughness that still reverberates today.

The destruction of these small community centred environs which had developed over centuries was accomplished in a flash by mohair suited savages who made certain that they built their own residences far from the nirvana`s they advocated.

Many of us can still recall the “Last Cottages”…those families or in many cases Individuals who stuck it out until they either died or were intimidated out of their homesteads by the encroaching tide of concrete and (bullet proof) glass.

This current application looks very attractive and on paper seems to offer so much to so many.
However,I still wonder at just how much sense of the Human many of these planners have and as yet I see nothing which even acknowledges the levels of Urban Dementia which the original and now deceased land barons bequeathed to us all…..
The best of luck to this new improved Coolock vision….It will be a struggle and an uphill one which needs more than concrete,brick and “Public Open Space” to address. :rolleyes:

Agree with most of that. Ironically the development of Northside meant Coolock villlage maintains a lot more character re: its original streetscape and scale compared to your other cited Northside villages.