TCD’s €100m development plan

knock em. burn them if possible.

it seems hard to believe the same planning gain couldn’t be achieved with a plan retaining more of the original terrace. However, moving the shopfronts is something of a comprimize and I am glad at least of this. Does anyone know if the Nuzum Bros facade is also to be moved. I find it harder to understand the demolision at this end of the terrace, surely the replacement gateway is quite small as far as I can make out, and with effort, could be incorporated. The new building will be fine, it will be a big improvement from the College Park side.

it’s a clever fudge on the part of TCD.They get rightful stick for killing Pearse st so any naysayers to the development are on a sticky wicket .Ultimately I reckon the corpo will turn it down cuz they won’t want to set a precedent after years of trying to get conservation taken seriously. The knee jerk An Taisce response is getting tiring at this stage,It’s unfortunate there isn’t some kind of provision for a conservation expert to adjudicate on this one

@tommyt wrote:

it’s a clever fudge on the part of TCD.They get rightful stick for killing Pearse st so any naysayers to the development are on a sticky wicket .

I absolutely disagree, this stretch of Pearse St is only ‘Dead Frontage’ because TCD bricked up the existing shopfronts, name one street in Ireland with a row of bricked up shopfronts that functions as a successful retail pitch.

The solution is very simple TCD can restore the buildings and reinstate the retail use to ground floor that the buildings were designed for, with the exception of one shop front which would feature a link from the Junction of Pearse St and Shaw St, back into the College.

These buildings are of sound structural condition and there is no excuse to remove functional historical urban fabric for the whim of someone in TCD.

@tommyt wrote:

Ultimately I reckon the corpo will turn it down cuz they won’t want to set a precedent after years of trying to get conservation taken seriously. The knee jerk An Taisce response is getting tiring at this stage,It’s unfortunate there isn’t some kind of provision for a conservation expert to adjudicate on this one

An Taisce and the Irish Georgian Society are the Heritage experts.

The positive answer to this thread is misleading I feel as TCD is a National Institution the concept of property is less relevant than it would be to a private developer. TCD as a National Body should have acted with more responsibility towards the built environment over the past two decades and not acting in the form of a knee jerk reaction when they start to out grow their site.

Make no mistake unless Trinity Court is moved from this location no architecture will solve the areas problems, American Holidays are the latest local business to flee, they went to Duke St last week. Quite frankly I don’t blame them.

@Diaspora wrote:

I
The solution is very simple TCD can restore the buildings and reinstate the retail use to ground floor that the buildings were designed for, with the exception of one shop front which would feature a link from the Junction of Pearse St and Shaw St, back into the College.

xThese buildings are of sound structural condition and there is no excuse to remove functional historical urban fabric for the whim of someone in TCD.

The positive answer to this thread is misleading I feel as TCD is a National Institution the concept of property is less relevant than it would be to a private developer. TCD as a National Body should have acted with more responsibility towards the built environment over the past two decades and not acting in the form of a knee jerk reaction when they start to out grow their site.

Make no mistake unless Trinity Court is moved from this location no architecture will solve the areas problems, American Holidays are the latest local business to flee, they went to Duke St last week. Quite frankly I don’t blame them.

I feel they have the corpo over a barrel on this one.Would have liked to have seen the city CPO a lot of TCD’s property (especially their ‘temporary ‘surface car park opposite Westland Sq) but it must not be feasible for whatever reason…
TCDinc. do not give a f**k about Dublin or the vast majority of its inhabitants who are of no economic use to them
Junkies are not the whole of the problem for Pearse st.,There are actually more junkies loitering around the other methadone clinic on lwr Abbey st. but they are not as conspicuos because of the higher footfall in that area.
overall it is a dilemma and it is a pity to think in this now prosperous city there is still compromises potentially to be made vis a vis conservation/regeneration. It will be very interesting to see how it pans out.

@tommyt wrote:

I feel they have the corpo over a barrel on this one.Would have liked to have seen the city CPO a lot of TCD’s property (especially their ‘temporary ‘surface car park opposite Westland Sq) but it must not be feasible for whatever reason…
TCDinc. do not give a f**k about Dublin or the vast majority of its inhabitants who are of no economic use to them
Junkies are not the whole of the problem for Pearse st.,There are actually more junkies loitering around the other methadone clinic on lwr Abbey st. but they are not as conspicuos because of the higher footfall in that area.
overall it is a dilemma and it is a pity to think in this now prosperous city there is still compromises potentially to be made vis a vis conservation/regeneration. It will be very interesting to see how it pans out.

I agree with you on the Junkies issue, the area around Lower Abeey St and Marlborough Place in particular really is beyond a joke.

I also agree that there need to be compromises in certain circumstances between conservation and regeneration. Campions Bar on North Wall Quay being a perfect example of a single structure of no particular merit being in the way.

But on the subject of Pearse St I can’t see any overwhealming argument to demolish historical structures in good structural order to put in an institutional facade. This entire proposal goes to land use, and TCD are proposing to replace one educational use with another. There is no compelling urban economic argument.

This area is 500 metres from O’Connell Bridge and no account is being given to the significant retail potential that must exist on that basis. In addition the Macken St Bridge will divert much of the existing traffic flows from this section of Pearse St making it a more pleasant pedestrian environment. To design a scheme that ignores this potential is wasteful and given that the existing structures can provide this they should remain and be renovated.

What TCD need to do is unbrick the facades

Can’t argue with any of those points.Potential objectors take note! that’s enough points to get the development turned down as it stands imho.

You have made some very good points yourself Tommy,

Some people have been very quick to jump onto a heritage angle to object to some schemes when they have no other grounds of objection, although I would say this can be tied to residents associations more so than An Taisce or the Georgians.

I also agree on the site opposite Westland Square as being the worst of the lot as well with land values of at least 20m an acre there really is no excuse for lands to be lying there totally unused and entirely deviod of even amenity value.

Then there is the site opposite the proposed demolitions that has another surface car park it is small but really again there is no excuse it really should be the subject of a CPO if the owners don’t submit a development proposal within the next 12 months.

One thing is for sure Pearse more than any other Street in Dublin needs extensive rejuvination and a few fiscal incentives would not be uncalled for.

When I read about this development, I was taken aback in admiration for TCD. That is, at the sheer size of their bollocks. Speaking as an ex-Trinity student who was brought up in the Pearse St area (as the crow flies, I lived about 2 minutes from those buildings they seek to demolish), I’m old enough to remember when Pearse was still a fairly lively place. Let’s not imagine that the buildings TCD own were dilapidated or financially unsound when they bought them; in many cases there were businesses there, but the college’s pockets were deep. If anyone thinks they’re turned over a new leaf, look at what’s happened on Lincoln Place in the last few years. Again, what was a fairly lively stretch of with a cafe, restaurant, bookstore and pub is now blank wall.

The only reason that TCD claim they need to demolish these buildings is so that the poor young waifs of the area can have access. One wonders what the two other gates already on this stretch of street – which are locked for most of the day, and open only to electronic card holders at other times – are for? As I mentioned, I was a student who lived 2 minutes away, but I often ended up having a 15 minute detour by the Front Gate to get into college. This had nothing to do with the fact there are no gates on Pearse St, and everything to do with paranoia towards their neighbours (hint to TCD: if someone wants to rob something from the college, they will go to the trouble of walking around to the Lincoln Gate).

Anyone know where I can lodge a complaint?

P.

yeah so further to this, i walked along here again yesterday and i don’t see the problem with providing an entrance way through the bike factory building retaining both it and the nuzum brothers shop next door. the bike factory building has quite a large opening currently bricked up, surely this could be incorporated into to provide a rather stylish entrance, as good, anyway, as the one that will replace it. in the pictures the new enterance way doesn’t look to be much more than one story high either. as for the other end of the street, there is already an enterance here, not very grand and always locked, between the six shops with fancy edwardian shop fronts and the rest of the terrace. it can’t be beyond the wit of man to open up an enterance here while doing less damage to this rather fine, albeit abused, street front.

Agreed.
This is a fine terrace, unique in terms of how uniform it is, with regular windows and parapet marching down the street. The shopfronts in their original positions look equally fine, esp with the integrated doorcases alongside.
To reduce the length of this terrace and reposition the shopfronts for no decent reason other than to create an entrance to the college with ancillary accomodation is totally unaccepable.
These buildings and shopfronts make a fine and worthy contribution to the street and should not be interfered with.
To ‘open up the college to the community’ could be done equally with the reinsertion of shops where they should be.

I agree about Trinity fudging this – at last physically offering something to the local community but almost using the gesture as a bargaining tool for the demolition.
Deal with the concrete monster (Engineering Dept?) facing onto the street along side the terrace, and leave these buildings alone.
Really, the cheek of them, the sheer cheek, it is extraordinary by any standards – letting the buildings rot, breeze block up shopfronts and two fingers to the street, and then come swaggering along years later and propose demolishing them. The cheek – I cannot get over this proposal.
Shame on Trinity.

just on a factual point, by concrete monster to you mean the sports hall and animal house Luas hall? there is permission already here to build between on the funny shaped land between the building and Pearse street. i don’t know what the new building will do to the parapet height or indeed the building line. the other concrete monster is the Simon Perry at the NE corner of the rugby pitch.

Sorry notjim – yes I think it is the sports hall, the one with the diagonal steel bars bracing through it.
I know the funny shaped piece of land you refer to – and like the corner stranded by the Loop Line this is another site that requires development. Is it not possible to use this building as an entrance rather than knocking what’s already there?

How would those who voted no feel about retaining and restoring the entire facade and the erection of a spec building behind? I just think it is an interesting question as TCD have probably destroyed the interior over time with maintenance as opposed to renewal being the general buildings policy on that side of the college.

That is a good point – it’s more than likely the interiors, not least the once-retail spaces on the ground floors, are probably non-existant now as a result of the blocking up & ‘conversion’ job.
I don’t know – if the interiors are in tatters, a replacement superstructure still wouldn’t detract from the facade’s contribution to streetscape which is the primary concern. Of course the buildings’ integrity is what’s at stake in such a case – but if the interiors are thoroughly unremarkable or are in bits, while the buildings could be put to a productive new use with a new structure to the rear then perhaps…it’s always tricky to know where to draw the line. If part of the original structure could be incorporated into the new section to offer a connection and a sense of coherence with the external facades, then I suppose it would become more acceptable. Exactly how you’d do that now…

I’d hate to see these buildings demolished, I pass them every couple of days and they really help define this part of Pearse St – not just by forming the street, but their architecture give the place a unique identity. The terrace as a whole is quite unusual, there’s nothing else to compare it to in the city centre; it’s almost like a Victorian version of a Wide Streets Commission development, more intimate in scale being only 3 storeys and of red brick, but featuring regular window placement and an unusually level parapet. It’d kind of remind you of the doomed York St terrace for some reason…
It also works in tandem with the three storey brown terrace across the road, and the other unusual William IVish houses next to the Trinity Capital.
To chop em off at the end diminishes the terrace’s impact, and undermines the established character of the street.
Yes there’s some black spots on this stretch of the street already, but no major ones, and none on this side.
What does the terrace no favours is that it’s manky dirty and north facing, giving the buildings an intimidating appearance. That brickwork could glow red if cleaned.

Does anyone know what these shop-like units are under the the bridge next door?

They’re one of those features you just always wonder about but never get round to finding out about 🙂
Were they an 1890s version of these regenerating coffee kiosks, popped in by the Loop Line builders, maybe in an effort to earn some cash from the acres of otherwise untouchable land they created? The railings appear to date from around then.

So this got through aBP today according to the times!

NJ

Almost correct both DCC & ABP made them retain the 5 protected structures.