Vertigo? U2 tower to be taller

@paul h wrote:

I’m a fairly liberal person with most issues,
but its preposterous to think that any group of people can set up and move in,
anywhere,on any piece of real estate
Especially a prized chunk of land like in docklands
Why should i have to work my ass off saving and working?
Maybe i should head to woodies or somethin pick up some ply wood and nails
and build my own little house in Stephens green

That would be an ecumenical matter. What other way has land come into private ownership over the centuries in that area other than the method you outline above?
Maybe Sir John Rogerson’s descendents should go down there and reclaim their stone that’s keeping the place from becoming a salt marcsh once again:)

Ballymore are behind the pan peninsula towers in London plus a few other planned and approved projects in the city.These are nearly finished..

If they are, then blame the DDDA. They’re the ones they issued as being shortlisted.

@Paul Clerkin wrote:

This thread has been edited due to the poster known as Jimllfixit removing all his posts which destroys the continuity of the thread.
Hence I have had to remove replies directed at his misguided allegations.

The plot thickens

There should be an option to disallow people editing their own posts after X days. the potential for abuse is greater than the annoyance caused by genuinely needed edits having to go though a moderator IMO

according to the article they will. Don’t know if we’ll get any more info though

Is it just me or was a decision meant to be announced on the 8th?

The article was:

“Tower’s latest twist will pit McGuinness against U2 and end up in court” by Michael O’Farrell. Published in The Irish Mail on Sunday 07/10/07.

Tomorrow, in the board room of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority, eight men and women will finally give the go-ahead for the U2 Tower – one of the most controversial construction projects Ireland has yet seen.

With millions of euro, not to mention huge prestige, at stake, some of Ireland’s and Europe’s top developers, architects and lawyers will be watching closely. So will the four band members of U2.

But whatever decision the board reaches, it is unlikely to signal the final chapter in what has already been a seven year saga replete with disagreement, mishap and administrative difficulties.

For it is now widely believed that the authority has abandoned the futuristic “Twisted Tower” design that it announced as the winner of a costly and problem-fraught architectural competition in a blaze of publicity in 2003.

If that turns out to be the case, then at least one disgruntled architect and one severely miffed property tycoon, the Irish Mail on Sunday has learned, will take their grievances to court.

The fallout could even lead to some serious friction between U2 and their manager, Paul McGuinness. For the band’s joint bid with Ballymore Properties is now the hot favourite to win the multi-million contract – and McGuinness has close family ties to the Blackrock-based architects, Burdon Craig Dunne Henry (BCDH), whose winning design now seems to have been shelved.

That ‘Dunne’ is Felim Dunne, Mr. McGuinness’s brother-in-law, whose close relationship once resulted in the architect doing work on U2’s Hanover Quay studio, where the entire saga began.

Now, however, U2 have a new favourite architect – Sir Norman Foster, who designed the controversial glass-donned expansion for Bono and The Edge’s Clarence Hotel. If the Ballymore Properties/U2 tender does get the go-ahead tomorrow, it will mean an entirely different, Foster-designed project will be built – opening the door for BCDH to go to court to have their design reinstated and stop the U2 design form being built.

He won’t be the only Dunne beating a path to the Four Courts, either. One of four tenders rivalling the Ballymore/U2 proposal has come from Sean Dunne, the Baron of Ballsbridge. But his tender is based on the original BCDH design that won the architectural competition. If Ballymore/U2 get the contract – and sources close to the band are confident they will – Sean Dunne, too, will head to court, arguing that the docklands authority effectively changed the rules.

One source close to Sean Dunne said: ‘Sean is hopping mad about this. He’s spent a lot of money preparing his bid on the basis that the DDDA was adamant that the twisting design was the one it really wanted. Now it looks as if that was not the case and he was wasting his time and cash.’

The taxpayer will be pretty miffed too, for the State-owned DDDA is rumoured to have spent €10m – on the competition itself, architects’ fees and ‘pre-development’ work – on the ‘Twisted Tower’

The saga began in August 2001 when the DDDA served a compulsory purchase order on U2’s Hanover Quay studio alongside the Grand Canal Dock.

The authority wanted to demolish the studio to make way for a civic public space around the canal basin. Initially, U2 fought the order , lodging four appeals to An Bord Pleanala in an attempt to save the studio they have recorded in since 1994.

However, in a shrewd move, the band instead concluded a valuable deal with the DDDA after letting it be known that they would ‘definitely consider moving to somewhere in the vicinity should a suitable property be offered as an alternative’.

The result was that U2 came away with the top two floors of the new landmark tower, which would also bear the band’s name.

Announcing the deal in and international design competition, Bono was typically loquacious. The once ‘extraordinary’ city of Dublin has been ‘defaced and vandalised’ through ‘corruption and cronyism’, he said in the summer of 2002.

‘Its hard to argue with people who know what they’re doing,’ he said of the decision to destroy the Hanover studio.

‘We just have to get out of the way. It’s not the best thing for U2 but we have to concede it’s the best thing for the city.’

But the sheer pulling-power of the U2 name resulted in the DDDA being completely swamped with more than 600 entries from architects as far flung as Texas and the Dominican Republic.

The judges, including U2 bassist Adam Clayton, chose a winner. But a complicated system set up to protect the impartiality of the process had backfired. No on e know who had actually submitted the winning entry and not even a full audit by PricewaterhouseCoopers could get to the bottom of the mystery. So a new winner was chosen.

In the immediate aftermath of the controversy, Archiseek.com, a popular online resource for architects, canvassed competition entrants and found that six had not been contacted by the auditors.

The DDDA has always disclaimed responsibility for lost or missing entries though sources close to the selection process suggest that the volume of paperwork simply overwhelmed administrators.

Ultimately, BCDH’s Twisted Tower was officially named the winner and, following a tendering process, five development consortium’s were short-listed to build the tower and develop the area around it. The five were Ballymore, the Dutch Royal BAM Group, which owns contractor Ascon Rohcon; a joint venture between Treasury Holdings and Sisk; Sean Dunne’s Mountbrook Homes and the River 2 Partnership.

There was more controversy when it emerged that U2 was associated with the Ballymore bid but the DDDA moved to reassure the other four bidders with a letter form its lawyers A&L Goodbody.

‘Neither U2 nor its representatives have had any role in setting rules for the contest,’ the letter read.

But rumours that the DDDA had dumped the twist design have long circulated possibly because the height of the tower has been more than doubled from 60m to 130m since the competition or perhaps because of the perceived difficulty and cost of actually constructing such a complex structure which would have been the tallest building in Ireland.

But sources suggested that most of those who submitted tenders never expected to have to work on the original concept.
‘There’s no way they expected to have to work on the original design. If they did, they wouldn’t enter’ said one associate. Under the stated rule of the tender process, all bidders were required to submit ‘compliant bids’ based on the competition-winning BCDH design.

However, the rules also allowed ‘variant bids’ or completely new proposals. It is known that many of the development bids have brought completely new architects on board.

Others, such as Sean Dunne, are understood to have sought and received reassurances that the original design is the preferred option and that any failure to submit a new design would not leave his bid disadvantaged.

Mr. Dunne is understood to be considering a legal challenge if tomorrow’s decision goes in favour of an altered design.

Peter Halpenny, director of property and development at Sean Dunne’s Mountbrook Homes, declined to comment on the possibility of a legal challenge. However, it is thought that any legal action taken by Sean Dunne would rely on a key sentence in the tender document sent out by the DDDA to the five short-listed developers.

It says: ‘Following an international architectural competition, a stunning twisted tower design, prepared by BCDH architects, was chosen by the authority as its preferred design. The design has now been further refined and the authority has undertaken critical elements of the pre-development work to establish an attractive development context for the private development sector.’

If, as MoS understands, Sean Dunne has put in the most competitive bid for the ‘preferred’ design, his lawyers will want to know precisely why he hasn’t won the contract.

Although Felim Dunne also declined to respond to requests for comment from the MoS, it is understood that BCDH, too, is considering a legal challenge if its winning design is dropped.

Asked about the possibility of legal action, the DDDA declined to make any comment in advance of tomorrow’s board meeting.

But whatever decision the DDDA board reaches tomorrow, the ongoing saga surrounding Ireland’s would-be tallest building seems far from over.

@Paul Clerkin wrote:

winner shall be in the mornings Irish Times….
expect this one to run and run

OOOH I’m going to have to stay up till it’s on the website now 😀

Great!! There’s just too many twisting towers already for it to have been interesting – Turning Torso, Sarajevo tower, Chicage Spire … it would have looked SO tired by the time it was built.
But whatever is built will need to very distinctive … needs to much more distinctive than a square block tower …