The Opera Centre

You’re right on both counts there Griff. I just like imagining how Limerick could be more of a destination in the country, rather than the also ran compared to Dublin/Cork/Galway.

@Tuborg wrote:

You’d have to wonder who could possibly be in a position to get hold of the finance to take on this massive project?

Of course any potential bidders could well have other plans for the site aswell.

It looks like as if the Opera Shopping Centre project is now dead.

The City Council will now start looking at other options for this block as part of the Regeneration projects.

Opera Centre site bought by Limerick City Council

http://www.limerickleader.ie/news/business/opera_centre_site_bought_by_limerick_city_council_1_3262927

By Anne Sheridan

THE Limerick Leader can confirm that Limerick City Council have bought the Opera Centre site with funds made available from the Department of the Environment’s Regeneration budget.

The announcement has been confirmed by Minister for Finance Michael Noonan this Friday afternoon, who said he hopes “it will get life back into the centre of the city.”

“Regeneration means more than regenerating the suburbs with social problems,” the Minister told this newspaper. “The biggest regeneration challenge in Limerick is to regenerate the city centre. We were afraid the Opera site would go to a developer who would sit on it for 20 or 30 years and we’d be left with all this dereliction, with no possibility of developing it,” he said.

Minister Noonan said the department had funds left over from its Regeneration budget this year, which they allocated to Limerick City Council to purchase the site from the National Assets Management Agency (NAMA).
He said an urban development plan will be drawn up for the site in three months, which is expected to become “a commercial, cultural and social hub.”

“Obviously we’ve only ideas yet, but we want to get the professionals in, and plan the whole area from the docklands right across.”

It is understood the council have been in discussions with the University of Limerick and Limerick Institute of Technology regarding having student residencies in the massive complex.

The sale was concluded this evening.

Peter O’Meara, the agent in Cork with Savills, said he was “delighted” the sale had gone through, which he said is “great for Limerick.”

While the cost of buying the site has not been revealed, it had been reduced in price to €12.5m, after its value plummeted from over €100m a number of years ago.

A statement is expected shortly from the Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan.

I really would have preferred a private investor to come develop the Opera site. Instead we have tax payers money being used to buy the site from NAMA, and a plan being developed over the coming months after the purchase. Do Limerick City Council have the money to do anything with the site?

I think we would have been better to offer the site and a €12.5m grant for any international retail/mall developer to come in and build the Opera centre. It would have brought external money into Limerick during development and greatly improved the retail offering of the city centre.

Will wait and see the plan for the site, hopefully it’ll work out, but really, the plan should have been in place before the tax payer paid for the site.

Right on, Cáit.

My proposal is not a “mixed development” — or any other such stupid self-aborting proposal.

I want it to be a real opera centre, plain and simple.
Christ, don’t we all need a decent arena for concerts, big plays and maybe even the odd opera.

By day it would be a training base and “home ground” for two dance academies, classical (ballet) and modern (e.g. for musicals).
On no account are these dance academies to be appropriated into the greedy arms of UL.
The Academy of Classical & Modern Dance must have their own separate distinct cachet.
ALL staff to be foreigners of high accomplishment.
ALL subsequent appointments to be “new blood” — i.e. no past graduates taking over the place à la UL post-Ed Walsh.
Compulsory international exchange tours in summer season.
Season ticket options for locals.
All-in heritage venue card rate for tourists.

“Freshman Dancers College” for enthusiastic paying locals / keep-fit people.
Injury recovery exercise tutoring for sports- and lay-people.
Poise and footwork classes for soccer and boxing enthusiasts.

Why can’t we dream for a change and stop pretending that we need more “housing” in the centre of the city and in
a totally inappropriate building ? :angel:

@pigtown wrote:

You know I had thought of something similar. If the UCH could be persuaded to be transferred to a new Opera House on the site it would bring a lot of life to the city. And wouldn’t the old city hall be a lovely opera house entrance?

In an ideal world, I wouldn’t like to see this site become a concert venue. I think the buildings in the area should be refurbished and be reopened to retailers. I thought the Opera Centre proposal was the right idea, although the whole aesthetic is a little too plasticky and the kind of thing that will become outdated pretty fast. Some attempt to incorporate the historic nature of the area alongside new retailers, like the Powerscourt Centre in Dublin, would be perfect.

In terms of an concert venue, I think a new landmark building near the river, perhaps on the Dunnes site, would be ideal for that – something weird and wacky that adds to the riverfront in a modern way.

This is all fantasy in the current climate though!

I see that Jim Long now expects to go 20 m down before he can commence work proper on building the new centre.
I’d estimate that the bedrock is at most 6 m below the surface. And the water table well above that level.
Considering that the overall footprint of the site is very large, do we really need so many levels of car-parking ?
And at what cost, given the amount of rock needing to be drilled out ? And how much sealing of the perimeter, as well as redirection of drainage from neighbouring sites needs to be done ?

Clearly, our Jamsie is being taken for a ride by the promoter.
To avoid another wart on the Limerick skyline, I’d be happy that Jim and all the rest of the council went on a one-off junket to Milan to see the Galleria Vittorio Emanuale II. If we must have a new shopping arcade, let it be tasteful.

The last thing Limerick needs is another shopping centre, and something as large and grotesque as the opera centre. I’d like to see streets running through the site, alternating between inside and outside. The site is far too large to dedicate to indoor shopping. Definitely, the principles of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuale II would be very welcome, but far beyond Limerick City Council. Who exactly makes the decisions in the council? Are there architects or urban planners in there? Or is Jim Long the head of the posse..

@Tuborg wrote:

Some quite puzzling quotes attributed to the “economic director” of the forthcoming combined Limerick local authority in the press recently.

http://www.limerickleader.ie/news/business/key-limerick-city-site-not-suitable-for-big-retailer-1-4609522

It’s laughable really that the site which for the most part of the last decade was trumpeted by Limerick City Council amongst others as imperative to the commercial revitalisation of the city centre can suddenly be deemed unsuitable for this purpose despite being put through an exhaustive planning process twice.

Frankly I’m happy someone is shouting stop before the thing actually gets built. In fairness to the economic director he is a new appointment and had no input into the Opera Centre plans.

@Tuborg wrote:

Let’s see;

• It’s a large city centre site in dire need of a combination of redevelopment and conservation.
• Immediately adjacent to established commercial, shopping and leisure areas.
• Planning permission is already secured for a large retail project so obviously this type of development is acceptable in principle
• The site is under the control of the local authority (although it’s hard to tell if this is a positive or an impediment).

No clearly it doesn’t make sense on any of these fronts! :wtf:

*Can’t disagree there.
*Fair enough Arthur’s Quay is established but it’s hardly a destination in the city.
*The key word here I think is in ‘principle’. Sure, the proposal didn’t contravene any zonings or the retail hierarchy of the region but at the same time it was way too big for the city.
*I don’t think it would matter who was in control of the site. That much new retail space would only serve to take from the rest of the city core.

@Tuborg wrote:

Essentially this is an admission by the local authority that they are way out of their depth here and haven’t a notion what to do with the site nor how to proceed with a redevelopment.

It’s over a year now since Limerick City Council purchased the site and it obviously begs the question what exactly have they been doing for the past 12 months?

I fear that the lack of a co-ordinated effort not to mention a comprehensive master plan will just result in a piecemeal, make it up as you go along approach that will inevitably lead to a disjointed and underwhelming development of the site.

Of course that’s not to say that a re-evaluation of the original concept isn’t required. It’s safe to assume now that the shopping centre proposal is never going to be built. Indeed a development of such considerable retail floor space can hardly be justified given that the reality check has well and truly set in.

While I don’t disagree that the council are out of their depth in undertaking such a huge redevelopment project, I don’t see them admitting anything. The new director has taken a look at the plans and has decided that they are not feasible.

A master plan for the future development of the entire city has been commissioned and is due for publication and I think any decisions on the site before this is published would have been grossly negligent of the council.

I don’t think a shopping proposal on the scale that was envisaged was ever viable. It would have drawn business’ and customers away from the existing retail core and would have had an overall negative impact on the city centre. In my opinion, had this gone ahead and filled all of the units then people would have had little reason to go anywhere in the city.

@Tuborg wrote:

All things considered my preference would be for a new pedestrian street flanked by purpose built, appropriately scaled and sensitively designed individual shop units (with linkages to the existing buildings and dual frontage where possible) snaking through from the Ellen Street/Patrick Street corner to a quality public space on Bank Place. Something along the lines of the opera lane project in Cork roughly. Perhaps an element of office space and residential accommodation could also be included. There’s ample room after all on what is a pretty extensive site.

It seems like I’m disagreeing with everything you say but I’m not sure that the city needs another street, not when we already have so many dead streets in the city. Also I think developments like Opera Lane and City Central really detract from a city. All of the shopfronts look the same and there is no variety. It’s almost like a shopping centre.

@Tuborg wrote:

I’d also like to see the granary building afforded a more prominent position in the redevelopment. Integration to the centre of the site is easily achieved. At the moment too much of the original building is concealed by the 1980s office block. The fabric of this structure, its stonework and arches should be showcased not hidden. The removal of the office building would also afford the opportunity to extend the internal courtyard space along the entire length of the granary.

Agreed.

@Tuborg wrote:

I really wish Limerick City Council would get off their arses and demonstrate that they are at least formulating plans or considering some uses for the site even in the short term.

Why not tear down that dog ugly hoarding and fencing along Michael Street. Clear those industrial buildings in the yard at the centre of the site and lay out a temporary car park. At least it would be a start. Why not also make the structurally sound buildings that have been vacant for the last 5 years available for rent again?

Show some imagination for feck sake!

Well the plans are almost complete I think. It is possible that the council don’t want to touch the site in a piecemeal fashion so as to minimise costs when something does happen, this is unlikely however and they are probably content to do a lot of talking without taking action, like the situation with the city museum. With regard to renting out some buildings, I’d imagine the rat problem is pretty severe there and any business would be hard pressed to pass any heath inspections.

What I would like to see in the site is loads of modern office space. If you consider that that any decent sized company wanting to set up in the city would probably need to build their own office building first, a large quantity of good quality office space would be a major asset. I don’t believe it should be used for retail as there are plenty of sites nearer to the core that have been identified in the most recent city development plan that are suitable for large scale developments.

Well Cork and Galway also seem to have suburban shopping centres and yet their city centres are buzzing. The fact is that people will go where the buzz is, and there’s now a cycle of decline in Limerick city where fewer and fewer people are going because the lack of people is making it a less pleasant place to be. There’s a few things which need to be done:

1. Get more people living in the city centre. Maybe the Opera centre could have a significant residential portion involved. If people live there, people will shop there.
2. Clean up the city centre. I think this is really one of the main reasons for Limerick’s decline. It’s just not a nice place to be – at least in terms of its shopping areas. There are certain stretches of William St. which demonstrate what rejuvenation plans might achieve, but the pedestrianization has frankly completely failed to rescue the place. Somebody really needs to start knocking down or beautifying the 70s and 80s buildings, which are reminiscent of the worst English suburbs. Number one priority should be Brown Thomas, which should actually look like what it is – the flagship store of the entire city. Maybe BT will at least revamp the facade when the pedestrianization of O’Connell St. is being carried out.
3. Start moving parts of UL into the city centre. In retrospect, the decision not to build UL closer to Limerick City might have been a bit of a disaster. Not only would it have brought interesting new architectural developments, but it would have transplanted thousands of young people currently living in Castletroy into the city centre.

But this is not the 19th century. As much as people may want it, there will be no manufacturing in the city centre – that is not how modern city centres work. So what is the city centre for, then, but for leisure and living? I don’t see what the problem with that is – it’s the model of every other city in Ireland, and most cities in Europe. I don’t see a lot of manufacturing in central Paris or central Dublin.

It’s not just about young people drinking coffee, but that’s a part of it. The city centre should be a place where people from different areas of the city, and surrounding towns, come to socialize. It should be a place where they can get an atmosphere and facilities they can’t get anywhere else. Again, what’s the problem with that? If you can think of a better, more sustainable use for a historic core of a city, now’s the time.

And I think the appearance of the city centre is crucial, not just because it’ll make more local people want to go there, but because it’ll draw tourism. Another big use for modern city centres is tourism, which draws in money for the further improvement of the lives of its citizens. Limerick has more in the way of historic landmarks and tourist sites than Cork or Galway, yet it gets overlooked because it is thought to be, with some justification, grotty and dank.