Multi billion investment for the city center?

I suppose just another wait and see game?

What ever happened to Engineer Ned Sheedy, who was fronting the Riverdeep Consortium that planned something mega for the city centre / wet lands a few years back?

A local source, with a Middle East connection . . . . .

Hmmm . . . . . didn’t somebody post about having an uncle in Dubai? 😉

You just know in your heart and soul that this is never going to happen… if something as small as the Opera centre cant get off the ground .. what hope a ‘multi-billion’ city centre investment… and where would the site be ?.. there are no brown-field city centre sites that I know of… not of a decent size… perhaps the Sarsfield st /Arthurs quay park area redevelopment proposed by the city council EML architects and others in recent years ?..

Until the paper come up with something more concrete(forgive the pun), I won’t believe it.

Typical Limerick Post article. Heavy on wild speculation, light on hard facts.

Sounds a bit like a story that was overheard down in the local pub to be honest! 😮

@Tuborg wrote:

. . . . . . . Heavy on wild speculation, light on hard facts.

I would definitely recommend Tomás O’Maoldomhnaigh to do all the rendering work and even if the project never materializes he will still have a nice outlet for it! 🙂

@tretle wrote:

So anyone any thoughts on this?

Any thoughts yourself?

Well I don’t see it happening.

The whole article is a bit fishy, it fits in well with fianna fail’s recent argument that we are out of the recession irregardless of how many people are still unemployed.
This type of rumor has come about in a suspiciously timely manor.

That being said, if there are real journalists working for the post they wouldn’t post a story like that without some amount of credibility to it.

I think it would be great for the city if it went through, depending on what the investment focussed on that is.

At the end of the day I think limerick city is a prime example of why we need to rethink how we manage things on a national level, I have been reading these forums silently for some time and I find the lack of transparency in the planning process to be amazing.
It’s affected our heritage, society and economy.

At this stage if this deal is actually real I wouldn’t be surprised if the planning process killed it or took some listed buildings down constructing it.

Sounds a bit Stuart Pearson to me

More like old John O’Shaughnessy doing his humble bit to maintain market confidence.

Limerick Post update on speculation of investors for Limerick
.

Overseas interest confirmed
Written by By Colum Coomey and John O’Shaughnessy
Thursday, 05 August 2010 09:03

Investors believed to be from Middle East

FORMER Mayor Kevin Kiely has confirmed a recent report in the Limerick Post that overseas investors, believed to be from the Middle East, visited the city with a view to a major development programme.

“These people have serious money,” added Cllr Kiely, who was reacting to recent criticism from Cllr Tom Shortt to his suggestions that Arthur’s Quay should be sold off for development.

In an exclusive interview four weeks ago, a Limerick entrepreneur, with links to the overseas consortium, revealed that a 10 year redevelopment programme of the city centre was envisaged.

The plan was, he said, to demolish buildings and streets and re-energise the entire city, as well as taking control of the Opera Centre, now in the hands of NAMA.

The investors, added the source, had met with the then mayor and other high ranking officials and viewed Limerick as the ideal location for their project.

They returned last month for a further inspection.

It has also emerged that another developer had set his sights on an entire city centre block with a view to transforming it into a shopping mall, anchored by an internationally known tenant.

Cllr Shortt meanwhile, described as “repugnant” Cllr Kiely’s recent call to dispose of Arthur’s Quay, seen as a key to future development plans.

Cllr Kiely responded: “Obviously he doesn’t know what he is talking about, he is new to the City Council, he should do a bit of research and get his facts”.

Development of the area, he continued, had been approved in principal by Limerick City Council when they were approached by developer Michael Tiernan in 2006.

“I attended a meeting in the Mayor’s office with Cllr Leddin and Michael Tiernan who had put together a proposal to ensure that there would be a huge development in the area, to include Liddy Street, Sarsfield Street and the Old Dunnes”. The proposed development, he claimed, failed to come about because of the economic climate.

“During my term as mayor last year, I was aware of interest from numerous overseas developers with really serious money.

“Now that The Opera Centre is gone into NAMA, it’s only a matter of time before someone will invest in this area”.

He stands steadfastly by his proposal to sell Arthur’s Quay Park.

“Everybody at that time agreed with the situation and the plans included the creation of a smaller public park.

“Something has to be done because it’s used as a haven for drugs, drinking, anti-social behaviour and rent boys”.

Does anybody take Kevin Kiely seriously?

His comments about Arthurs Quay Park are disgraceful, and outright lies (and a repeat of Jim Long’s lies two weeks ago in the same paper). I go through the park regularly and don’t see such activity. His comments will only ensure that people will frequent it less and less, and may even encourage the activity that he talks about. And if that happens we may be only glad to invite the developers in.

If I had a chance I’d throw that man off Thomond Bridge when the tide is going fast. He is abusing his platform as a public representative and dragging this city through the gutter.

@zulutango wrote:

His comments about Arthurs Quay Park are disgraceful, and outright lies (and a repeat of Jim Long’s lies two weeks ago in the same paper). I go through the park regularly and don’t see such activity. His comments will only ensure that people will frequent it less and less, and may even encourage the activity that he talks about. And if that happens we may be only glad to invite the developers in.

It’s not as simple as you make out with regard to Arthur’s Quay Park. Now that the railings are gone, it doesn’t seem to discourage people from going there as much, but you still hear of trouble and a mere look at just about any time of day is enough to see that it is still a favoured haunt of trouble-making young lads.

I think the problems would be to some degree alleviated if Liddy St. and the old Dunnes and back of Roches were active with a lot of footfall. The side of Arthur’s Quay facing the park is ill-planned too – completely dead.

No wonder the park has problems, but the solution isn’t to scrap it, but rather deal with the surrounding area. I don’t agree either with pretending the situation at the park isn’t problematic at present. Certainly it’s not currently an inspiring location for the tourist office!

keepaneyeonbob, the park is no more troublesome than any other part of the city. Kiely’s (and Long’s) comments are well out of order. You hear of trouble. Of course you do. You hear it from people who either don’t know what they are talking about, from people who never go through the park but who, for some reason love to peddle scare stories and hysteria about this town, or from those with a particular agenda (such as Kevin Kiely and Jim Long). I discussed this with a senior figure in city hall lately. They have recieved complaints about Jim Long’s comments from people who do use the park regularly as firstly, they believe the comments do not in any way reflect the situtation there, and secondly they feel that they themselves, as regular users of the park are being sullied by such comments. They are not rent boys, drunks, drug addicts or otherwise involved in anti-social behaviour. One thing is for sure, this city is really let down by it’s public representatives.

Now, the architectural merits of the park and surrounding buildings is a different story! I do think there is significant scope for improvement. But we don’t have to be spreading false stories to justify whatever change is needed.

News this week in the limerick post about interst in investment in the city by Boston businessmen .
I wonder how factual this story is(doubtful in my opinion)!