New street and redevelopment for Dublin ?
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That image is a lot sharper and does display how an eastern alignment would provide a more orderly street pattern than what may be proposed to the west.
However given the fact that the Eastern frontage to Henry St is probably protected and probably not held by the company it is probably not a viable option for them. I would however like to see them develop a link from Abbey St to the GPO arcade via Stewarts Lane at some point in the future.
In relation to what appears to be the most likely proposal; The devil will be in the detail of this one but subject to heritage concerns being met in relation to the Adelphi this could possibly be the most exciting proposal in Dublins retail history. The idea of a company with the capacity to gaurantee occupation of a project this size self developing gives reassurance that a speculative proposal cannot.
The Abbey St area has been going downhill for decades and it is clear that Middle Abbey Street is the best chance of reversing this, late last year I walked the entire City Centre Retail area and in all of Dublin only Marlborough St compared badly to this area.
The Luas stops at Jervis and Abbey have had little impact on the Street with passengers simply alighting and entering the Jervis Centre going North or Quartier Bloom going South.
Only a development of this scale can I feel make a sufficient impact on the area and act as a catalyst to sp[ur other developments on sites such as the surface carpark to the rear of the M & S site on Upper Abbey St. Given the title/legal delays that have mired the Carlton site this probably represents Dublins best chance of a significant increase in both class A retail provision and the rates base in the medium term. I just hope they get it right in all respects.
You really couldn’t ask for a better arrangement – a quality, Irish-owned, long-established, reputable department store, with a generally strong architectural track record, expanding in a comparitively rundown area of the north inner city by acquiring a land parcel piece by piece in a fashion that did not result in dead frontages and derelict sites for years on end.
All in comfortable economic circumstances, and without the pitfalls (usually evident in the end product) of speculative activity.
AND offering the distinct possibility of righting an architectural wrong made four decades ago, the restoration of one of the city’s most distinctive buildings, and not forgetting a large stock of older buildings on Henry St and Middle Abbey St too.Thanks for the picture Morlan – now he tells me :). It also shows a very interesting detail relating to the missing tower – note that the 60s frontage is much wider than that to the rear, as if it’s going out of its way to replace a previous structure. Whereas the vast white domed part didn’t exist in the 60s, the footprint of it would have been filled with another building, which seems to extend out almost exactly to the width of the end tower…..
It does seem a bit wider than the surviving end tower, but that could be down to any number of reasons. May or may not be significant….Nice moment captured here by fjp 🙂
http://www.fantasyjackpalance.com/fjp/photos/city/0codeb/building-henry-st-arnotts.html
Breaking through the eastern side of the store would be as good as impossible – it features a magnificent collection of early 20th century ‘Dutch Billys’ that make Henry St what it is. They form one of the most impressive terraces in the city and are all protected:
Cutting through the 60s part to their recent facade on Middle Abbey St seems the only option – it’s a pity we may also lose what are excellent pieces of inflll, here and on Liffey St.
Extraordinary they paid €11 million for the Chapters building – they were taken to the cleaners on that one!
Surprisingly it isn’t protected as far as I can make out – nothing exceptional but the bay window and shopfront are fine pieces.Very interesting picture that last one, as it makes it look as if O’Connell Street has disappeared or is at best very narrow. An illusion I’m sure.
Just a fanciful suggestion :rolleyes: . But if Arnotts did want to do something on a ‘New York’ ,ie BIG scale, perhaps the new street could run east west from the cul de sac that is Nth Princes St right through to Liffey Street.
Imagine if you will a Milan style ‘Galleria’ running through terminated by a spanking new building on the liffey street end (already having Clerys terminating the Other end). A monumental entrance on Nth Princes, A giant dome in the middle with the Henry St- Abbey Street Mall running North south at this point.
Dont Know how much it would mess up their current layout but look at the advantages:
Princess Street Regenerated.
Arnotts Get Direct Link to O’ Connell Street.
Dublin gets Shopping Landmark.
New Street gets a roof 🙂
Again just a dream, have a feeling this is just a little bit too New York.something like this ?
it would be nice alright if properly designed to fit with the existing architecture
@Maskhadov wrote:
Arnotts in New York-style plan for city centre
Do you know of the development plans for Broadstone to connect with parnell St / Middle Abby Street or the
H.A.R.P. development plan?
Jacinta@Maskhadov wrote:
something like this ?
I know the Dublin City Planning Officer has been pressing for that type of Milan Galleria too.
If the rumour about the new street to the west of the original building (& so close to Liffey Street) is true, the feeling I’m getting is that they don’]not [/I]protected (welcome to the Dublin scheduling system!).
Looking at that image, the one thing that jumps out is how disposable current shopfronts are designed to be.
Cut n’ paste – was thinking just the same thing, not to mention how inappropriate too. How does an off-white box in any way reinforce the design of that building? All it serves to do is undermine it, reducing the upper floors to a bit of ‘fun’ decorative fluff from the ‘olden days’.
The very least that could have been done is a ground floor execution in brown to match that magnificent feature window on the first floor – even if it does look suspiciously just as recent…Do ye really think so?? I must say I really like the shopfront. The door on the right upsets the balance a bit but otherwise it’s a lesson in simplicity and good proportion, and sets off the upstairs very well. It’s a commercial street so I don’t mind the white colour.
Each to their own I suppose …It’s sturdy alright, and ‘supports’ the upper floors well, but the colour is way off, and the offset door a shame.
The ‘oh well it’s modern, we have to have a contrast’ arguement is getting a bit tired by now I think – carried out on an astonishingly crass scale recently on one of the city’s most significant buildings without so much as a peep from anyone! Have a pic soon……I wouldn’t want every shopfront on every old building to look like this, but given that the original is long gone I think it’s fine – smart lettering too. I don’t agree that it’s a ‘modern contrast’ for the sake of ‘modern contrast’ shopfront, or that this approach is overused. There are plenty of examples around town of where a well-detailed and proportioned traditional shopfront has been recreated in the spirit of the original building (but avoiding pastiche) – Dunnes grocery store on George’s Street would be a good example.
The only barometer, be it traditional or modern, should be quality (including appropriateness), and the Office shopfront fulfils that for me.
The real problem as far as I’m concerned is the continuing plague of cheap nasty traditional-style plywood shopfronts being fitted to handsome town buildings all over the country, and sometimes resulting in the destruction of good old shopfronts. I did a study recently of shopfronts in Longford Town and it’s quite mind-numbing the way that town has been smothered almost from one end to the other with badly-detailed and badly-proportioned shopfronts with stuck-on brackets and lurid colours. I would love to see some of the design attention of the better modern shopfronts found in cities reaching these places.
But even in the cities there are problems. Some people may have noticed, in the past few months, the majority of Spar shops in Dublin city centre have been fitted with an internally illuminated box fascia which hangs over the existing fascia, completely destroying the relationship between the various parts of the shopfront. The addition of this fascia absolutely cannot be an exempted development!! I’m compiling evidence at the moment for a complaint … As if the convenience stores are not enough oif a problem already! :rolleyes:
From Business Interview in The Sunday Business Post on January 1 with Simon Kelly.
re:Arnotts
“It will be a spend of €300 million to €400 million on construction alone so it will be a billion euro development when it’s finished,” said Kelly.“Our goal is to do a huge street-based retail scheme providing big box shops for retailers who can’t get housed at the moment. Retailers nowadays want big boxes and it’s not available on any of the streets in Dublin so the only way to provide it is in new developments.
“The biggest problem on Grafton Street is there’s no shops that are of any use. We’ve been trying to get Mango on the street for a long time.
A planning application for the first phase of the Arnotts expansion is likely to be lodged in January. The partners plan to demolish some buildings on Prince’s Street, a small street between Penneys and the GPO, and redevelop them into new shops that will link O’Connell Street to Henry Street.
“There’ll be retail on multi-storeys on either side of the street,” he said. “It’s a full redevelopment of that whole street right up to Arnotts, linking in to it and putting a new street through to Henry Street.
“Hopefully then all the footfall on O’Connell Street will start turning left after Penneys.”
I didn’t write it in the piece but they’ve bought a unit in the GPO Arcade to facilitate this
Just to give an update, application now likely to be lodged before beginning of September and street will emerge between GPO Arcade and the River Island part of Arnotts. Contact wouldn’t be drawn on exactly where but “not as far up as River Island”.
That is great news
I like the aidea of an east west street as this proposed linkage would most likely reinvigorate Princess St North.
The one point I would like to see clarified is that if there will be a new linkage between River Island and Abbey St. More ITZA would equate to more €€€€
Hmmm – but River Island is the 1960s block is it not? Where else could they possibly knock through given the rest of the terrace is protected?
Or do you refer to a street between Princes St and Liffey St jdivision?@Graham Hickey wrote:
Or do you refer to a street between Princes St and Liffey St jdivision?
That won’t happen or at least won’t on its own, they want the footfall to travel up Prince Street along double height fashion units and then turn right onto Henry Street – they basically want to usurp the part of Henry Street between O’Connell Street up to near Roches. Otherwise they won’t get the rent roll they want – they have to take away some of the dominance of Henry Street – a single street through to Liffey Street won’t achieve that.
If you look at your overhead image from last page marked with red, white, orange and green lines, I think that between where Princes Street meets red and green block it will turn right (completely my opinion). I have heard from a retail source who’s not involved that Arnotts will eventually only occupy the bottom left hand corner of that picture. That’s not been confirmed by the principles however.I’m amazed that if they are atempteing a dog leg that they don’t try to do something with their holdings on Abbey St to try to expand the Henry St core into what is a very dead area in retail terms.
An arcade with units in both the indo offices to the East and towards the Adelphi on the right could be a real winner in every sense as existing values are lowest in these buildings.
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