well what about the developments popping up in the shannonside ?

Best Commercial Building (Irish Architecture Awards 2007)

Architects: Carr Cotter Naessens

A sophisticated building on a diffficult site, this building’s greatest strength is its urban strategy in relation to the grain of the city.
The re-use of salvaged materials, combined with ‘state of the art’ glazing, creates an exciting dynamic.
This building is a fine insertion to Limerick city, and sets a very high standard for future development in this area.

I surely hope so, as the drab Allied Irish Bank next door with it’s “gaping hole” on Cecil Street for the last 30 years or so need a wake up call! Strange for a commercial organisation like AIB that boasts to be the leader in its sector in Ireland is letting new comers like the Bank of Scotland out style it on the same building block.

Architect’s Comments:

In November 2003, the structure of the old Grain Store collapsed, the building’s stone was taken away and put in storage.
After discussion with the planning office, it was agreed to replace the previous building on the site with a new contemporary building. The new building refers to the memory of the previous structure in a number of ways.
• The new building mantains the distinctive footprint of the Grain Store with a narrow front to Henry Street and a long facade to Cecil Street lower.
• The gable wall to the East is clad with reclaimed masonary from the original structure.
• The building reads as a distinct object, a bookend, which will again define and address this important junction in the city.
The strategy for the building is generated by the difference in scale and construction between the two facades which relates to the original composition of the grainstore, and of Georgian buildings in Limerick generally, where the corner articulation derives from the resolution between the main fenestrated facade and the secondary blank facade.

Well we lamented the loss of the Grain Store in previous posts 890 893 894 895 896
It’s modern “phoenix“ replacement is truly worthy of it’s award. Thumbs up for the Architects Carr Cotter Naessens and the developer Aidan Brooks

Client’s Comments:

We have worked with the architects on a number of buildings on this street, which is now one of the premier locations in the city. The previous grainstore on the site, which was similar to another down the street which we successfully restored a few years ago, had to provide office space and an entrance to apartments in a development behind. This unfortunately collapsed in the course of construction; however with the support of the planning department we were able to build a modern building on the site.
My brief was to provide an elegant flagship development, with a restrained planar elevation. Oblique views down the street and over to the river were to be acknowledged and the building had to address the street in a formal but contemporary manner. The building has achieved this and is full of light and space although the footprint is small. The exterior sets a new benchmark for commercial developments in Limerick.

@PoxyShamrock wrote:

Speaking of developments on that side of the city. My uncle who is a tower-crane operator was telling me that up to 12 cranes will be located on the Parkway Valley Shopping Centre. There was a two for a while and during the week the third crane was put in place so it looks like this development is going to be big.

It’s a pity work like this isn’t happening on Patrick St., Rutland St and Ellen St. Anybody know any more on The Opera Centre? Things aren’t looking too good at the moment.

Here is probably a shot of your uncle’s tower-crane? There is certainly a commercial building boom going on between the Dublin road and the Waterford road. You say it will take 12 cranes to cover this site alone. Will there enough building cranes to go around at the moment? Even the E.S.B. is beefing up it’s power supply for the area! There is only one solution for the city centre, i.e. turn it into a residential zone only and work, shop in the suburbs!:rolleyes:

See WikiMapia

Parkway Valley Shopping Centre

Planning Application: 064103

Amendments/modifications to previously permitted planning ref. 04/3700 & 06/3211. Changes are as follows: Basement level reconfiguration of ancillary storage areas. Lower Ground Floor level & Car Park Mezzanine level – reconfiguration of goods delivery/storage areas, plant areas and circulation areas, revised car parking layout and retail anchor unit and other minor amendments. Ground floor level– includes revisions to anchors A & B (each to accommodate ancillary restaurant areas & storage), 38 no. retail units, 11 no. restaurants/cafes, creche and centre storage/offices (in lieu of 46 no. previously approved retail units and 2 no. restaurants). Revisions also include revised circulation, doors and additional stairs. Car Park C- revisions to layout including revised circulation and relocation of ramp access. First floor – revised layout including reconfiguration of previously permitted food court, reconfiguration/reduction of library, omission of permitted family leisure-plex, restaurants and creche and creation of first floor mall area with 13 no. retail/commercial units, 5 no. restaurant units, 2 no. financial services units, additional level on anchor A, new anchor unit C and ancillary offices/storage. Second floor– omission of 10 screen cine-plex and provision of new multi-functional sports and performance auditorium(to accommodate ice rink, sports/basketball court, theatre) and assoiated concessions and health, lifestyle and well-being centre incorporating physical therapy, lifestyle therapy, holistic/alternative therapy, gym/yoga, reception/admin, tearooms, beauty therapy suites, treatment rooms and sports injury clinic]59,642sqm to 73,142sqm[/U] and car park spaces decrease from 1653 to 1598

CONFERENCE CENTRE COULD BE WORTH MILLIONS
By MIKE DWANE

THE Department of Arts, Sports and Tourism has confirmed it is considering the development of a conference centre in the Limerick region that could be worth hundreds of millions annually to the local economy.
A location between the city and Shannon Airport is being mooted for the 2,000-plus capacity venue but the Department is to first undertake a feasibility study on the proposed development over the coming weeks.

“At this time, the plan is for the feasibility study to commence in the near future, however, we do not have any further information on it at this time,” was all a Department spokesman was prepared to say this Tuesday.

However, the Limerick Chronicle understands tourism and business interests in the Mid West are to be consulted in the coming weeks about building a centre as a public-private partnership.

John Fahey, chief executive of Meet Limerick Shannon, the public-private body that seeks to attract business delegates to conferences in the Mid West, said a purpose-built facility of the scale suggested would “represent a huge economic boost” for the region.

Killarney has its national event centre and a national conference centre is currently under construction at Spencer Dock in Dublin, while Mr Fahey he was also aware of discussions about building such a facility in Cork. But he is confident a conference centre in the Limerick area would be viable.

“The minimum stay for business conferences would be three days and the average spend about ¤1500 per person so it would represent a huge economic boost for the region. I couldn’t say at this stage whether it would be full every day but it would still be huge for the region while the business is being built up,” he added.

Hi Lads, I’m new to the discussion on what’s been going on in Limerick but I’m a mad keen fan on the city and thought I’d add my tuppence worth to the Charlotte’s Quay situation you’ve been talking about a bit.

I seen to remember that the planning application for the car park which forms the ‘core’ of the site in question received planning approval in late 1999. I was working in the architect’s dept of Limerick City Council at the time and when the application was put on my desk for comment I instinctively reacted thinking that the proposal represented a lost oportunity for one of the most important sites in the city. I drew up an alternative proposal for the entire site which (I’m symplifying now) would include developing a small plaza roughly where the car park now stands served by a network of small streets which would attempt to stitch the site fabric back into the existing layout of Charlotte’s Quay, Broad Street, etc.

Following discussions with my seniors, I prepared some presentationn drawings of what I had in mind and was instructed to call the applicants into City Hall for a meeting to see if we could get them to reconsider their approach.

The meeting was held on, I think, Christmas Eve. Naturally, my senior colleagues made last minute excuses and I was left to meet the applicant his architects/engineers/legal advisors, etc., on my own.

Anyway, I made the pitch as best I could. I showed them my few sketches and told them that this was the way we, in the Council, pictured the future direction of the site taking. I hoped, I said, they might take these suggestions on board before their application was too far advanced.

At which stage I was curtly interrupted. Didn’t I realise, the client wanted to know, that planning permission had already been granted for his car park days before our meeting and that the bulldozers were already on the site?

Of course, nobody had bothered to mention a word of it to me.

On another note, I have been hustling a proposal for how to get more activity going in the Georgian area of Limerick, a place I’m really passionate about. If you’re interested, you might go to my website – the Planning Dispatch – which you’ll find at http://www.garrymiley.com . I think it’s Dispatch No 11 which you’ll find in the archive section. You might take the time to read the experiences of some the people who’ve been trying to renovate buildings on the RPS in the area and the level of crap they have to put up with.

Cheers.

Garry

Thanks for the comments on the proopsals for Georgian Limerick. I actually did a masters degree on the whole idea of ‘how to successfullly manage an Architectural Conservation Area without sucking the life out of it’ at UCD ten years ago. It was before the 1999 Bill was published and my concern at the time was that, unless carefully managed, there was a danger that legislating to conserve buildings could actually make things worse. As it happens (and I not usually one to say ‘I told you so’) I was right. Especially about Limerick.

I have to stress as well that I’m no genius. Most of the ideas I was pushing in my thesis (repeated in the Dispatch) are just rehashed versions of the systems applied in New York, Boston and parts of Germany.

Regarding the Charlotte’s Quay car park, I don’t know where to begin. To understand how these things happen, you have to spend some time working within the local authority system to discover how ‘unjoined’ up everything is. And how chronically political. There are some very well meaning people in these places, but eventually they get ground down…

I can’t see any worthwhile solution for the Charlotte’s Quay site which doesn’t first involve demolishing the car park. Not as radical as it first sounds. Notwithstanding the penthouse additions, carparks are not highly serviced buildlings – easy to build, easy to pull down. No doubt some ultra Green people will complain about the ’embodied energy’, etc. but I’m sure we can buy oen of these carbon off-et thingies.

Btw, this is an absolutely fantastic forum. How come the contributors to this debate are not actually making the decisions for how Limerick should be developed? An argument for directly elected mayors with executive function and politically appointed cabinet if ever there was one.

Garry

Conference centre mooted to boost Limerick tourism (Sunday Business Post)

22 July 2007 By Ian Kehoe

The government is investigating the possibility of building a 2,000 capacity conference centre in the Limerick area in an effort to boost tourism in the mid-west.

The Department of Sport confirmed last week that it was considering building the facility, and would be commissioning an independent feasibility study on the project over the coming weeks.

If sanctioned, the new regional conference centre will be located in the Shannon-Limerick area, near Shannon Airport.

The aim of the centre is to increase the number of business tourists arriving in the region.

Department officials will meet representatives of the business and tourism groups in the coming weeks to discuss the project. The department is keen to build the centre as a public-private partnership, whereby the state will join forces with a private company to work on the project.

Business tourism is an increasingly important element of Ireland’s overall tourism policy. According to a recent Failte Ireland report, revenues from business tourism amounted to €447 million last year, with the average value of each visitor estimated at €293 per day.

The tourism body is forecasting that business tourism will be worth more than €1 billion to the economy by 2013, more than double its current value. The forecast assumed that the number of business visitors will increase steadily from295,000 in 2006 to almost 600,000 in 2013.

A key part of that strategy is reducing the reliance on Dublin. Currently, the majority of conferences and business events are located in the capital.

A new facility in the mid-west would complement the new Conference Centre Dublin (formerly called the National Conference Centre), which is being built in Spencer Dock.

Preliminary building and excavation work has already started, and it is due to open in September 2010. When finished, the centre will have the capacity for 8,000 conference delegates.

Its focal point will be the auditorium, a 2,000-seater venue with a 400 square metre stage. There will also be two so-called ‘‘flat floor’’ spaces, which can be used for exhibitions, conventions, and banqueting.

Regional Conference Centre:confused:

Hmmm…….. If Dublin has the National Conference Centre and since it could be located near Shannon Airport well why don’t we call ours the International Conference Centre instead! 😀 Man this Dublin mind-set that everything outside the capital has to be downsized to it!

To boost Limerick Tourism

Fair enough, then build it in the city centre. If the Kerry Co-Op site ever came on the market it would be an ideal location. Hotels, Restaurants, Pubs, Nightclubs are all walking distance away. Attractive riverfront walkway is underway. Train and bus station is only 1.5 Km away. Shannon airport is only a 20 minute drive by bus / taxi.

Second option would be to build it at Bunratty (between Limerick and Shannon). But would it complement the Tourist attractions already built up there or negate them?

Third option would be to place it near the N18 /N19 Junction at Shannon. It would be good for Shannon that the conference centre be visibly seen by passing traffic. This would raise the profile of the town away from been perceived only as an airport or an industrial zone town.

The Kerry Co-Op site has such huge potential, it really needs to be managed properly. I would rate the ESB site and that site as the two most important sites in developing Limerick. We also badly need to address the failure that is Liddy st and the 2 storey Dunes stores.

The government is investigating the possibility of building a 2,000 capacity conference centre in the Limerick area in an effort to boost tourism in the mid-west

what?? a conference center to boost tourism. Thats just farcical. No tourists visit countries or areas because of a friggin conference center. I also agree that putting it in shannon makes no sense. In fact whats the purpose of building it at all we already have large amenities for this sort of event in the university of limerick. Another waste of money.

Conference Centre Location

My preferred location would be near the city centre, however since Shannon airport is part of the Limerick / Shannon gateway it would be a worthwhile exercise into looking at all the options that would best serve the city if not the mid-west region as a whole.

The airport like the university is one of the main driving engines of our local economy. Since it’s foundation it had to adapt to change and innovated new business concepts not just to survive but to grow. With open skies and the full removal of the stopover, new alternatives such as a (International) conference centre at the airport might be an important new ingredient to interest American airlines to fly direct to Shannon.

Take multinationals like Johnson & Johnson for example, who operate both in North America and Europe (Ireland included). Their (geographical) business conference needs could well be met in Shannon? Limerick hotels, restaurants etc would certainly not snub these “Business” tourists.

Nearly all the city hotels have conference facilities to cater for local, regional needs. The university (UCH) can easily deal with a 1.000 delegate conference but is it not curtailed to operate only during the vacation periods? Since the department is keen to build the centre as a public-private partnership it cannot surely be can’t be seen as a hand out?

Anyway I’m off to the Irish Pub now to link up worldwide with fellow ex-pats per video conference and hopefully see Limerick beat Clare!:D