Vertigo? U2 tower to be taller

SOC’s article printed above is not the actual article. This is. SOC if you’re going to use media articles please reproduce in full and don’t alter it to make it incorrect.

Winning bid for U2 tower is almost €30m under highest offer
28 October 2007 By Neil Callanan
The winning consortium for the U2 tower is believed to have bid almost €30 million less for the site than the highest bid submitted.

The Riverside II Partnership is understood to have bid at least €100 million for the site, while Sean Dunne is understood to have bid about €75 million.

The Geranger consortium which comprises Ballymore Properties, Paddy McKillen and U2 band members and management is believed to have bid a figure of slightly more than €70 million for the site. McKillen is believed to own only a small slice of Geranger, whose bid is said to have been a relatively straightforward cash offer.

The Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA), which ran the competition to select a developer of the tower and a new design (the third) for the building, said it could not comment on the price offered by Ballymore and its partners and how it matched up against other bids.

‘‘The tender process is ongoing,” said a spokeswoman.

‘‘This is commercially sensitive data which cannot be released at this time.”

It is estimated that the U2 Tower scheme will cost over €200 million to design and build. Construction is expected to start in 2008 and be completed by 2011.The winning bid comprises a 120-metre tower with a hotel, shops and apartments designed by Foster + Partners.

At the top of the tower will be a suspended egg-shaped pod which will house U2’s studios.

So far, the DDDA has only released a night time render of the building. Night time images are notoriously difficult to judge a building’s quality by because, among other things, they don’t show the materials used or shadowing impacts.

When asked why it has not released daytime renders, the DDDA said ‘‘that the release of images is a matter for the docklands authority. All images will be released at the end of the tender process.”

However, an alternative image of the design has been obtained by users of architectural discussion forum https://archiseek.com and posted on their website.

The new tower design was described by the DDDA as ‘‘inspirational’’ and ‘‘one of the most significant architectural projects to be delivered in the regeneration of the Docklands area’’.

DDDA chief executive Paul Maloney said the ‘‘submission exceeded the expectations of the brief with the emergence of a breathtaking design uniquely suited to this prominent docklands site’’.

From certain angles, the tower bears a resemblance to Deutsche Bank Place, the bank’s headquarters at 126 Philips Street in Sydney in Australia, which was designed by the same architects.

The losing members of the shortlist are believed to have met last week to discuss their options. They each spent at least €1 million, according to one well-placed source, and one of the bids cost as much as €2.5 million.

When the shortlist of developers was announced, the DDDA’s press release omitted to mention U2’s involvement with Ballymore in the process.

U2’s involvement with Geranger was, however, made known to all bidders prior to bidding, the DDDA spokeswoman said.

It only became publicly known that U2 was involved with Ballymore when the authority’s legal representatives, A &L Goodbody, wrote to the other bidders, stating that the band and its representatives had not had any role in drawing up the rules for the contest. That letter was then leaked to the media.

To ‘‘underpin the independence’’ of the assessment process, the authority felt it necessary to appoint Chris Wilkinson of Wilkinson Eyre Architects, Shih-Fu Peng of Heneghan Peng Architects and Michael O’Doherty, former principal architect at the Office of Public Works, to advise it on the bids.

They decided that the Foster design and the Geranger bid was the best submission for the site.

I have one but file size is too big to upload.

@theman wrote:

@darkman wrote:

I think its time to get on with it or we will be here in 2012 with a new design:rolleyes:

Yeah, but the DDDA won’t – this is going down the road of the DDDA wasting €10m plus on three different designs, without a sod being turned and DDDA dissappearing into oblivion. The CEO will be happily back in DCC when all the fuss has blown over….

Methinks it needs to go to 180m.

Methinks it will.

🙂

Zaha Hadids design is perhaps the ugliest skyscraper ive ever seen,it amazes me how its even a topic of discussion. BTW those renders look pretty good!now all we need is someone to photoshop in the watchtower??any takers

My god – that Hadid proposal is shockingly bad to my eyes, lumpy, bulky and completely lacking in elegance… Then again I think the Foster proposal is great! No accounting for taste eh?Actually I have one qualm – I think it would be better if it wasn’t leaning outwards towards the river, instead rising straight upwards – as Graham says it gives it a directionality as if it’s leaning to acknowlege or point towards something – which it isn’t. I actually disagree that the building is presenting it’s “gables” to the city – to me the main elevations are the sculptural ones with the potentially very interesting cladding design….

Graham H

Future towers, stop dreaming! compared to IFSC II and other DDDA projects this is top quality stuff, hopefully once built it will finally end the highrise phobia. Agreed the building could do more to face the city but hopefully the new city will be built up around it.