pairc ui chaoimh

@who_me wrote:

I think people are being a bit too optimistic about plans for the stadium’s redevelopment. The budget is reportedly 30m euros, for a 60K all seater stadium & excellence centre. In comparison to 400m+ for a 50K all seater (Aviva stadium).

i think most people understand that this will be done on a limited budget, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do something decent with the design. it’ll just take a little bit of imagination. remember there won’t be a lot of major structural work on 3 sides of the ground

you could argue that the current shell has a stark bare quality to it, that could really be set off well if you had a good roof design put over it, with an imaginative lighting system at night perhaps: imagine it reflecting in the river as you come in over the new downstream crossing or drive in lower glanmire road.

if stark strong lines are what you are looking for, that suggestion by Demolition man above fits the bill, though it might look a bit unbalanced on one side of the pitch. are the wires part of the floodlighting system? pretty neat if they are!

here are 2 pics of berlin olympicstadion

@rofbp wrote:

i think most people understand that this will be done on a limited budget, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do something decent with the design. it’ll just take a little bit of imagination. remember there won’t be a lot of major structural work on 3 sides of the ground

you could argue that the current shell has a stark bare quality to it, that could really be set off well if you had a good roof design put over it, with an imaginative lighting system at night perhaps: imagine it reflecting in the river as you come in over the new downstream crossing or drive in lower glanmire road.

I’m astonished that they can even build the 2-tier stand alone for that price. From what I’ve heard, the price per seat spirals once you add a second tier.

And – I haven’t been in Pairc Ui Chaoimh in a while so feel free to correct me if I’m wrong – but I’ve heard the rows are too tight for the existing seating, so they had to cut the tops off the back of the seats to allow leg-room for those behind. That’s not going to be easy to fix.

I’m not particularly enthused about what they can do for that price.

@reddy wrote:

It does seem like a questionable decision alright. Why bother spending time and money creating masterplans only to wilfully ignore them at decision time. Why councilors have any say in panning matters I’ll never know.

As for the stadium redesign, does any know of the involvement of an architect? Can the GAA be lobbied about that considering the strength of their lobbying to the council?

Thomond Park has a good assessment of its redevelopment here -http://www.thomondpark.ie/news/6259.php – it cost €40m so the GAA may struggle to achieve much with €30m for both the stadium and centre of excellence.

Unfortunately an Architect hasn’t caught sight of the plans – purely an exercise in “sure it’ll be grand” engineering. The new two – tier stand will be completely out of context with the rest of the stadium, and the design language envisaged in the Dockland Masterplan and subsequent LAP.

This is after all the same organisation that considers the Gaelic Grounds in Limerick to be top class :rolleyes:…

Today’s Evening Echo reports that the council are to sell the land that was earmarked as vital to the future of the Cork docklands for considerably less than what was paid by the city under the CPO; this just gets worse!!

Very good letter from the Green Party community development spokesman in the Echo as well, that guy has some balls to go against the Cork Mafia (Echo not online, I will scan and post the letter later)

Thanks for posting that, kite. I’d love to see it challenged.

Appreciate the correction on the stadium budget, that sounds a lot better; though it still seems low for a second tier, IMO.

Likewise, I’d much rather see them build one stand really well, with scope to repeat that design on the far side or (ideally) all around the ground over time; rather than a mediocre upgrade now.

I’d absolutely love to see a quality shared stadium in Cork – it’d lead to lots of crossing over of fans. I’ve only been to a couple of games in PuC, and never been to a Cork City game; but if they shared a decent (clean!) modern stadium with Munster I’d happily attend all 3.

p.s. any chance of tickets for the CL final? Ah, g’wan!

p.p.s. I think I read on a thread here a couple of years back about the public gallery at a council meeting being cleared, when this issue was being discussed. Am I mis-remembering?

@who_me wrote:

I’m astonished that they can even build the 2-tier stand alone for that price. From what I’ve heard, the price per seat spirals once you add a second tier.

And – I haven’t been in Pairc Ui Chaoimh in a while so feel free to correct me if I’m wrong – but I’ve heard the rows are too tight for the existing seating, so they had to cut the tops off the back of the seats to allow leg-room for those behind. That’s not going to be easy to fix.

I’m not particularly enthused about what they can do for that price.

the budget figure of 30 million is certainly a worry. i didn’t know 40 million was the price for thomond park, though that did involve 2 new stands and the purchase of a terrace of houses.

the “new” seats are appalling. they are one of the reasons i would be concerned about the GAA’s quality control regarding a new design: they put the seats in the uncovered stand, saw they were terrible, cut off the tops, then installed the same type of seats (with cut off tops!) in the covered stand. that indicated that they couldn’t care less about comfort of fans.

@kite wrote:

Hi browser, a regeneration amount of 20 million was the figure up to the week of the vote by Cork city council. In the days running up to the vote that figure magically increased to 30 million.

Both the above figures were mentioned in reports put before councillors, either 20 or 30 million was mentioned in any news article I read; I would be genuinely interested to see any link to any forum where a figure of 90 million was mentioned?

i’ve looked online and couldn’t find a figure higher than 30 million anywhere. it seems impossible to do any decent job for that kind of money

@kite wrote:

Hi browser, a regeneration amount of 20 million was the figure up to the week of the vote by Cork city council. In the days running up to the vote that figure magically increased to 30 million.

Both the above figures were mentioned in reports put before councillors, either 20 or 30 million was mentioned in any news article I read; I would be genuinely interested to see any link to any forum where a figure of 90 million was mentioned?

Hi Kite,

I’ve tried and tried and can’t find where i read this – but I am 100% certain I did. Nearest I could find from googling was Sunday Tribune article pasted below. It at least mentions €90m. The other article was more specific though.

That said, the various articles paint a picture of the county board having no real idea what they will do at all. I suspect they will eventually do it right as the only way to make this a success is to differentiate the stadium from the half assed competitors in Thurles, Killarney and Limerick (x 2 – one of which is, in fairness, two thirds assed! – I think the praise I’ve read for Thomand is way over the top though. Its functional at best). The county board, despite their best efforts, will probably ultimately build a fine stadium complete with necessary bells and whistles. Also their current position that there will be no “foreign games” in the new PuC will inevitably fall away for commercial reasons.

I would however agree with those who cannot understand why we need to cross our fingers on this in the first place. The need for proper design, multi sport use, etc should all have been written into the t&c’s for the sale.

Fears stadium rebuild will hit plans for park
John Downes, News Investigations Correspondent

Pairc Ui Chaoimh: proposalCork city councillors are due to vote tomorrow on whether to give the green light to controversial plans for a €90m redevelopment of the city’s Páirc Uí Chaoimh stadium, involving the sale of several acres of council-owned land to the local GAA board.

However, concerns have been raised by some local representatives about the impact of the sale of the lands on the council’s proposal to develop a park in the nearby docklands area.

Under plans put forward by the local GAA board, Páirc Uí Chaoimh will be refurbished to include full-sized all-weather floodlit pitches, a new two-tiered stand which will increase the stadium’s capacity to around 50,000, and a GAA centre of excellence. It is expected to cost up to €90m to complete.

However, the local GAA says it needs 6.8 acres of land adjacent to the stadium, which was purchased by way of a compulsory purchase order by the council, to allow it to provide the centre of excellence. It argues that the project will not be viable unless the sale of the lands is sanctioned at tomorrow’s meeting.

But local Fine Gael councillor Des Cahill told the Sunday Tribune that he had yet to be convinced why the GAA needed the lands. He said they were being earmarked by the GAA for the provision of a training pitch, with most of the centre of excellence facilities located within the stadium itself.

“The city have signed a contract commissioning the design of the new Marina Park. When this design is completed, then we will be able to see exactly what we are sacrificing for an all-weather training pitch and more importantly the impact that this pitch will have on this proposed new public park,” he said.

Classic politician ploy?! Vote one way after all the lobbying, issue a stalling/equivocal statement, see which way the wind is blowing, then annouce loudly and proudly you are reversing position…because it’s what the people want. Have any of them any backbone….!?