The Opera Centre
- This topic has 168 replies, 32 voices, and was last updated 11 years, 10 months ago by
.
- Posts
Well that’s fair enough. Maybe there don’t have to be city centres. Maybe we can all drive from one retail park to another, and from one suburban pub to another. We could just shut down the city centre, and dissolve Limerick as a city and as a community. I think most people would disagree with you.
You seem to think that “leisure activities” encompasses in its entirety students sitting in cafes and vomiting on doorsteps. Shopping is a leisure activity, as is going to a poetry reading, or visiting a library. So is sitting in parks, admiring the river, and admiring buildings. People generally are interested in leisure activities, as evidenced by the number of people who visit the Crescent Shopping Centre. People are also quite interested in doing it in the context of a city centre, as evidenced by Cork and Galway and Dublin. And competing with them is not irrelevant, but actually vital. There is nothing, and there never will be anything, that will attract people from abroad to Ireland in this region. That’s not why people visit Ireland. They visit Ireland mainly to visit Ireland, not to visit Cork, or the Rock of Cashel, or Kilkenny, and certainly not King John’s Castle. So if we’re competing, we’re competing for a slice of that pie.
There are plenty of potential Limerick brands. On the other hand, this is an architecture and planning forum. Limerick is in some rather important places a grotty dump, and, again, most people would probably disagree with you that making Limerick better for the benefit of its citizens is nothing more than a futile exercise in “tarting up” the city to be sneered at. That’s really the mentality that spent the last century destroying Ireland’s architectural heritage.
According to the Leader the amalgamated planning department of the new local authority will be the first tenants of the Opera Centre site. They will be relocated to the old AIB building on the corner of Patrick St. and Ellen Street. This is the most modern building on the site and needs minimal work to make it habitable. I don’t know how many people will be based there but it’s a start at bringing people back into the city anyway.
@pigtown wrote:
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.
I think you are overestimating the extent of the so called retail core if that’s even an appropriate term to use given the paucity of the current offering. Realistically Limericks shopping district currently stretches from the O’Connell Street/Roches Street junction down as far as Denmark Street along with some of the adjoining streets and laneways. Hardly what you would call expansive!
If you recall, up until 5 or so years ago Rutland Street and Lower Patrick Street were lined with a variety of businesses; retail stores, cafes etc before the misguided decision to remove the occupants before redevelopment plans were even finalised. So this portion of the city centre was/is very much part of the commercial zone.
In reality though the quality of Limericks retail line-up has evolved disappointingly since the Cruises Street project opened over 20 years ago now. William Street for example never capitalised on the momentum created along with the increased footfall in its vicinity and the opportunity to freshen up the street was lost. It has stagnated at best since.
Similarly with O’Connell Street we saw only modest investment in retail premises even throughout the excesses of the “boom” years. The former Sony centre outlet has been vacant and up for sale for a number of years at this stage. The former Fergusons chemist across the street likewise. The calibre of many businesses on the street currently is poor and significant renovation and possibly amalgamation of properties is needed to attract new, higher quality tenants. There’s no sign that this is forthcoming and you can’t exactly usurp the existing occupants either.
@pigtown wrote:
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.
You might not be a fan but in fairness that City Central development along with the pedestrianisation scheme completely revitalised Bedford Row. It brought high quality retail and residential accommodation along with a five star hotel to the city centre on what was a neglected and decaying site. Do you remember how dingy it looked previously? Take a look at the attachments below. :thumbdown:
The project also attracted the first significant batch of retailers in to the city centre for many years, most of them not represented in Limerick previously. All the units are fully let too. It’s clear that in order to entice quality brands in to the city centre accommodation of an appropriate size and standard is required. I believe a project similar to that on Bedford Row could work well for the opera centre site. By bringing in fresh blood and more footfall one would hope that it would provide a knock-on benefit to the city centre at large.
@pigtown wrote:
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.
I’m not convinced that the opera site is best suited to a large office development. Sure it might bring further employment in to town but large scale office blocks generally provide quite a dead, dull street presence and won’t exactly draw people in to the city except for the employees obviously. An element of office space could of course be accommodated but I wouldn’t like to see the majority of the site given over to it.
There are other locations that are more suitable for this purpose. The half built GPO/hanging gardens development which is in NAMA was to contain a large amount of office space over 6 floors or so. It should be a priority to have this completed at the earliest opportunity. The former ESB building and eventually Henry Street Garda headquarters provide another large scale redevelopment opportunity on the quays along with the portion of the docklands that SFPA are looking to offload. A significant amount of office space is currently vacant in the building at the corner of Thomas Street/Catherine Street as well.
@pigtown wrote:
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 admire you optimism but I wouldn’t hold my breath. I’ve lost count of the number of glossy city centre strategies and development plans that have been released over the years. They’re hardly worth the paper they’re printed on. This will simply be a regurgitation of the same aspirational spiel which is churned out endlessly and that the City Council have neither the ability nor the will to follow through on!
@rumpelstiltskin wrote:
Maybe there don’t have to be city centres.
Well, of course there don’t. A city is one form of social, political, economic, technological etc organisation, appropriate to one set of social, political, economic, technological etc factors. Change any of those factors and you change the form of organisation that is needed. I see no need to try to preserve cities, towns, monasteries, office blocks, canals or whatever after their economic etc justification has ceased, although I’m quite happy to examine the remains — or the ruins.
Look at Askeaton: lots of interesting ruins.
@rumpelstiltskin wrote:
Maybe we can all drive from one retail park to another, and from one suburban pub to another. We could just shut down the city centre, and dissolve Limerick as a city and as a community. I think most people would disagree with you.
We don’t need to drive from one place to another: Messrs Amazon’s drivers will deliver the stuff to us after we’ve bought it on tinterweb. We don’t need intermediate merchants carrying expensive stocks of (for instance) CDs, washing machines or books: we can read the reviews online and get the stuff delivered.
On the other hand, we don’t need to “shut down the city centre” and I don’t argue that “we” should do so. I simply say that (a) if, as I believe, the economic justification for the continuing existence of some cities is weakening, many folk will just stop going there and some cities, some towns, some advance factories etc can decay gracefully without anyone’s having to do anything expensive to shut them down and (b) unless you can think of an economic justification for investment in the infrastructure of a former century, you are going to waste a lot of money trying to prop it up.
@rumpelstiltskin wrote:
You seem to think that “leisure activities” encompasses in its entirety students sitting in cafes and vomiting on doorsteps. […]
Actually, I was hoping to provoke you into coming up with a set of economic activities that would justify investment in a city and that could not be done more cheaply or more effectively elsewhere. I have, alas, failed in this: you don’t seem to have any idea of what sort of activities could be laid on that would provide a return on the investment. And you have extraordinarily confused ideas about attracting tourists.
bjg
No, you’re right. We’ll attract plenty of tourists by abandoning the city centre. It’s literally impossible to imagine how a city could be viable in the 21st century – every other city in Europe is already dead.
@Tuborg wrote:
I think you are overestimating the extent of the so called retail core if that’s even an appropriate term to use given the paucity of the current offering. Realistically Limericks shopping district currently stretches from the O’Connell Street/Roches Street junction down as far as Denmark Street along with some of the adjoining streets and laneways. Hardly what you would call expansive!
If you recall, up until 5 or so years ago Rutland Street and Lower Patrick Street were lined with a variety of businesses; retail stores, cafes etc before the misguided decision to remove the occupants before redevelopment plans were even finalised. So this portion of the city centre was/is very much part of the commercial zone.
In reality though the quality of Limericks retail line-up has evolved disappointingly since the Cruises Street project opened over 20 years ago now. William Street for example never capitalised on the momentum created along with the increased footfall in its vicinity and the opportunity to freshen up the street was lost. It has stagnated at best since.
Similarly with O’Connell Street we saw only modest investment in retail premises even throughout the excesses of the “boom” years. The former Sony centre outlet has been vacant and up for sale for a number of years at this stage. The former Fergusons chemist across the street likewise. The calibre of many businesses on the street currently is poor and significant renovation and possibly amalgamation of properties is needed to attract new, higher quality tenants. There’s no sign that this is forthcoming and you can’t exactly usurp the existing occupants either.
Yeah I agree with everything you said here, which is why I think utilising the site for retail would be wrong. I would assume that any new retail on the site would be high profile nationally, like Victoria Square, Dundrum TC or at the very least, Opera Lane. The council would be looking to attract major names and at least one department store. Should they succeed then the area, which once housed local stores and businesses that would really only attract local customers, would become the new core of the city. The powers that be would be more in line to focus on amalgamating and enhancing properties on Cruises St., William St., and O’Connell St. As we have seen from the Opera Centre site it is possible to put large development sites together in the city.
You might not be a fan but in fairness that City Central development along with the pedestrianisation scheme completely revitalised Bedford Row. It brought high quality retail and residential accommodation along with a five star hotel to the city centre on what was a neglected and decaying site. Do you remember how dingy it looked previously? Take a look at the attachments below. :thumbdown:
The project also attracted the first significant batch of retailers in to the city centre for many years, most of them not represented in Limerick previously. All the units are fully let too. It’s clear that in order to entice quality brands in to the city centre accommodation of an appropriate size and standard is required. I believe a project similar to that on Bedford Row could work well for the opera centre site. By bringing in fresh blood and more footfall one would hope that it would provide a knock-on benefit to the city centre at large.
Just to be clear here, of course Bedford Row is a million times better than it was, I would just prefer if the design involved some variety from unit to unit so that it gives the illusion of a vibrant and interesting street. And I use the word illusion because although it is much nicer, it is still a pretty boring street, both to look at and to pass through.
I’m not convinced that the opera site is best suited to a large office development. Sure it might bring further employment in to town but large scale office blocks generally provide quite a dead, dull street presence and won’t exactly draw people in to the city except for the employees obviously. An element of office space could of course be accommodated but I wouldn’t like to see the majority of the site given over to it.
There are other locations that are more suitable for this purpose. The half built GPO/hanging gardens development which is in NAMA was to contain a large amount of office space over 6 floors or so. It should be a priority to have this completed at the earliest opportunity. The former ESB building and eventually Henry Street Garda headquarters provide another large scale redevelopment opportunity on the quays along with the portion of the docklands that SFPA are looking to offload. A significant amount of office space is currently vacant in the building at the corner of Thomas Street/Catherine Street as well.
Maybe you’re right. I suppose the site is too big to devote itself exclusively to retail. office, or residential. A good mix of each would probably be the best bet.
I admire you optimism but I wouldn’t hold my breath. I’ve lost count of the number of glossy city centre strategies and development plans that have been released over the years. They’re hardly worth the paper they’re printed on. This will simply be a regurgitation of the same aspirational spiel which is churned out endlessly and that the City Council have neither the ability nor the will to follow through on!
You have to be optimistic in this country as it would be all too easy to become a cynical, pessimistic old man with the state of the country. I am more positive about the upcoming plan because unlike the last masterplan for Arthur’s Quay, the council actually own the site and seem to have a driven and ambitious new city manager.
Bedford Row may be better than it was, but as architects the discussion goes beyond economic benefits and attracting retail. Bedford Row is not a good public space, you don’t need an architect to tell you that.
My own view is this.
I see no sense in having a (seriously) third level college in the city centre.
This is the wrong place for students due to city distractions, more expensive accommodation, no sports amenities at hand and no scope for that campus to expand.
Neither is it desirable to have one end of the city swarming with students most of the day.
The raising of this idea of a UL city campus seemed at that time very sudden to me.
It was almost like someone doing some commercial lateral thinking : get the students in and fleece them of their pocket money — that’ll keep the existing city traders going.To me, The Granary ought be preserved. God knows the people in the 1980s put enough effort into its remodelling. Personally, I’d get rid of the Trinity Rooms, Shannon Development, NSAI, etc and turn the whole building into a proper modern city library, mediathèque, language learning labs and local studies museum. Local business/industry badly need a reference library plus patents/trademarks search facility and I see this part of it paying for itself. Maybe you could also have a geneology section which could be self-supporting.I mourn the loss of the WorkSpace units but accept that this facility may be placed elsewhere if that plot is needed for other more pressing facilities.
The old pharma preparation unit to the right of The Granary and the old Georgians on Patrick Street, these must be sorted out. What to do with them, I’m not sure.
But a city campus here is daft.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
