New street and redevelopment for Dublin ?

@GrahamH wrote:

The central Abbey Square is to be substantially increased in size, with the building line on the Abbey Street side pulled back by a considerable ten metres to enlarge the square.

From what I have seen of the two proposals, I find the Arnotts scheme head and shoulders above the Carlton development.

That central square in the Arnott’s proposal is a key difference between the two schemes. In this regard there is an interesting, and puzzling, comment in the Planner’s Report on the Carlton site.

Where Kearns is talking about the merits of the opening onto O’Connell Street, (the supposed ‘new square’, or ‘room off a room’, that he wants the developers to go off and make more formal), he summarily dismisses the Arnott’s type solution, favoured by several posters to this forum, of a generous square within the body of the site as an alternative to hollowing out three existing streetscapes, O’Connell St., Henry St. and Moore St, to create three half-assed ‘squares’ with the loss of a considerable amount of decent building stock. He states:

Whether it’s commercially driven or not, the making of an entirely new square ‘at the heart of the scheme’ is exactly what is most appealing, and most civic minded, about the Arnott’s scheme, and you would have thought that the bigger Carlton site would have had even greater scope for the creation of something even better again.

It was initially mooted for September based on the original plans and timelines, but due to the planning delays it will be post Christmas before they move – why move anywhere until after your busiest trading period!

This early ‘80s map shows the network of streets & lanes that was eliminated for the Ilac Centre, in red.

We’re all talk these days in planning of ‘breaking down large impermeable city blocks and integrating them into the urban fabric’, but the impermeability of the Ilac block (after shopping hours) was further increased just last year with elimination the L-shaped route between Henry Street and Moore Street by Dunnes building over the west end of Sampson’s Lane, in blue above.

only 11 bus routes on O connell Street!
when was henry street pedestrianised? I don’t think i recall traffic on it in my lifetime

anyway city centre malls really are a silly silly concept. I wonder if you could accommodate the same retail floorspace and retain that urban grain?

@alonso wrote:

only 11 bus routes on O connell Street!
when was henry street pedestrianised? I don’t think i recall traffic on it in my lifetime

anyway city centre malls really are a silly silly concept. I wonder if you could accommodate the same retail floorspace and retain that urban grain?

I don’t recall traffic either but i do recall a time when there was tarmac on the street and a sidewalk which was quiet dangerous as you can’t see where the sidewalk begins on busy shoppig days when there are hundreds of people there. They are not a silly concept they help fight global warming and help prevent urban sprawl. If there were no shopping centers in town, there would be no people there at weekends they’d all be stuck in traffic jams in their cars on the fifth ring road going to suburban shopping center number 937

Sorry I meant that the Ilac has some permeability during shopping hours in that you can walk through it, but Sampson’s Lane is now cut off day & night.

Ikea also has to provide a bus service to Ballymun. So you think there should be no city center shopping centers? why? So Dublin should just be for work, no recreational facilities, that’s a very car dependant americanised point of view

I’m not defending shopping centres or opposing them because they most definitely serve a purpose in the right circumstance.
but , in New York , Manhattan specifically, which is a pretty urban place to say the least and whose inhabitants generally dislike the whole suburban way of life
there is only one shopping centre that i can think of (manhattan mall) and from what i can see it is not a huge success ,pretty dead somewhat dismal place.

The problem with the type shopping centres we generally have is that they turn their back on the streets and the city they occupy. One only has to look at the monlithic walls of M&S and Jervis to understand the tendancy. This is why they are repugnant.

I have no problem with centres in the city but they have to be an extension of the street. We can look to Helsinki to see how this has been achieved with centres having connection to streets, metro etc. This is a city, giving up whole blocks that can be closed in the evening destroys the very idea of a living city.

Whilst it is a smelly place at times and the redevelopment had very questionable build values Temple Bar attracts people precisely because of the great mix of street, retail and residential. LIkewise Grafton Street survived with small streets and arcades as an extension of the street.

Rain is no excuse for letting developers build blocks that add nothing to the urban streetscape.

ctesiphon:good examples of what I meant; is there any news of what could potentially be the best chance at present – the Iveagh Market? Has it just gone dead?