Richard Rogers in Dublin?

From last Saturdays Indo

Developers plan €100m dockland scheme designed by Rogers

PROPERTY developers Treasury Holdings have teamed up with architects the Richard Rogers Partnership to build a circa €100m signature development in the Dublin Docklands.

Richard Rogers is the architect behind such award-winning buildings as the Pompidou Centre, Paris, and the Lloyd’s Building in London. He also built the Millennium Dome, which Treasury Holdings made a controversial and unsuccessful attempt to purchase in 2000. Mr Rogers has been involved with the project for more than 18 months, and a planning application based on RRP designs is expected to be lodged with the Dublin Docklands Authority in mid-January 2003.

The site fronts on to Barrow Street in the Grand Canal Basin area of the Dublin Docklands.

The development is expected to be about 12 storeys high, in line with surrounding buildings. It will be split between two main buildings, a residential high-rise and a residential or office building.

Property director John Bruder of Treasury Holdings said the developers were “looking forward with a mixture of terror and anticipation,” to seeing Richard Roger’s design.

Mr Bruder said Treasury were looking for a “high quality architectural design that will grow in value over time” and has “strong commercial potential”.

The developers and architects will be working closely with the DDA to ensure the development fits within the master plan for the area, he continued. The site itself is designated under the DDA master plan for a high landmark building.

Treasury Holdings bosses Johnny Ronan and Richard Barrett have taken a battering in the London markets via split capital investment trust Real Estate Opportunities in which they have about a one-third stake.

The group reorganised as solely a property investment company at an egm in October. This latest Docklands development seems to underline how the two men’s focus is now very much on their property portfolios.

Richard Rogers was born in Florence, Italy, in 1933. In 2001, he recorded an impressive fee income of stg£12.1m from a staff of 48 qualified architects.

He is also an adviser to the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, on implementing urban policies geared towards producing high density, quality sustainable housing.