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The images and drawings I’ve seen – which aren’t reproducable – show a plaza on O’Connell Street itself and then a short street leading into what I assume is currently the Royal Dublin Hotel, another street back to Moore Street and a larger, wider street down to Henry St with a minor square there. The building images I’ve seen are about six storeys, very boring. But they were prepared at least two years ago so I’m sure it’s been improved.
There was some details a couple of days ago in The Sunday Business Post:
Developer Joe O’Reilly wrote to the Railway Procurement Agency (RPA) criticising the decision to reduce the number of Metro North stops in Dublin city centre. O’Reilly said that the decision to reduce the number of stations from three to two “is a weak compromise”. In a letter written in October 2006, and released to The Sunday Business Post under the Freedom of Information Act, he said that the southern part of the city centre will “yet again be strengthened by the current proposal which dedicates one station (St Stephen’s Green) to the south, while the second station is shared; the northside has no station. Furthermore the positioning of a station on O’Connell Bridge will serve to create greater division between north and south Dublin.”The RPA has said it will consider a third city centre stop at Parnell Square East, after a request from Dublin City Council. That station would be close to a number of properties owned by O’Reilly, including the former Carlton cinema site and adjoining land on O’Connell Street and a 50 per cent stake in the Ilac Centre to the rear of that site.
“It is true that a metro exit at Abbey Street would be within 300 metres of our development but we are not looking to just create a successful shopping district quarter,” O’Reilly continued. “We see our development as an engine for regeneration – simply put, we want a successful development in a vibrant, prosperous part of the town. Together with the metro we can rejuvenate Parnell Square/Dominick Street and the surrounding areas, making them as attractive as St Stephen’s Green on the south side.”
O’Reilly said that if the decision is made to stick to two stations they should be equitably positioned with one on the southside and one on the northside. He said the proposed station under O’Connell Bridge was in an area already congested with pedestrians and would be a disaster. “It just does not make sense to put all the commuters and tourists through streets crowded with shoppers to get to the metro,” he wrote. “By positioning the second station at north O’Connell Street/Parnell Square east we will put passengers away from the areas of congestion.”
O’Reilly continued that the new public square planned for part of the Carlton cinema site would be able to accommodate a metro exit and contrasted that situation with Oxford Circus tube station in London which has to close regularly at peak time because of passenger congestion. “There is only one chance to get this right and the decisions made now will impact on generations to come,” he concluded.
An earlier submission, drawn up by TJ O’Connor & Associates on behalf of O’Reilly’s Chartered Land, said that if one “enters the Ilac from Henry Street and exits on Parnell Street is is like going into a time-maching, regressing about 15 years to pre-Celtic Tiger days”. Other documents show Chartered’s redevelopment of the Carlton site will involve constructing a 92,900 square metre development.
RPA chairman Padraic White responded that following talks with stakeholders in the O’Connell Street area it became clear that a stop there would have had significant drawbacks in terms of the likely impact on businesses and traffic. The station under the Liffey was then chosen because there would be less construction impact and because it offered better connections to the Luas red line.
He said he did not agree with O’Reilly’s view that the stop under the Liffey would create additional congestion problems because the station’s location would reduce the number of people using O’Connell Bridge. Up to six entrances in total will be used to allow passengers disperse from the station and the footways on O’Connell Bridge will be widened.
DDDA are taking part of the site back for car parking and roads for T2 so it definitely won’t be built in current guise
@Overworked wrote:
I think this is interesting !!
I think the tower looks worse than I expected. Ballymun architecture for the 21st century. I predict it will be hated by people within five years of completion.
I don’t think so Stephen, I have been wondering the same thing. My understanding was that it was supposed to be a public street. Perhaps it technically is but doors and a reception desk certainly don’t create that impression.
Rent them out. After the shopping centre is fully let I’d be surprised if its investment value didn’t cover land cost plus construction cost (provided of course that market holds up in some way). After that it’s profit.
I presume it’s either access via the Webworks building or else via the stone warehouses on Lavitts Quay that were on the market a while back
@tfarmer wrote:
This is embarrassing. How long have they been planning this thing? What is it over 5 or 6 years and they are still at it. At this rate any other city in the world would have built 5 skyscrapers. Why in Ireland is planning such a long drawn out affair, ffs its not an ancient druid council meeting, its a skyscraper you design it, plan for construction then build it. No in Ireland we must consult the dog in the street, make sure granny is happy and have the obilgatory round of infighting before anything gets done.
Not at all but in Ireland we do have a planning and development body controlling the docklands development that strangled and bungled the whole thing.
There are shops let to Meadows & Byrne, Starbucks, Nue Blue Eriu, Fran & Jane, Louis Copeland, Henry Jermyn, The Carphone warehouse, House of Tea, Kohl, Inis Meain knitting company, Kevin Sharkey and The Pink Room (whatever that is). Ely is there as well obviously and will be interesting to see if Conran is willing to open now. Official opening is today
@SOC wrote:
For those pedantic members who take exception to the odd typo in my last posting,
Hold on a second. You changed the copy to say that Riverside II had bid e75 million when in fact they had bid more than e100 million. That’s not being pedantic and it’s a lot more than a typo. You changed the copy and made it incorrect.
@lostexpectation wrote:
woah total confusion wonder who wrote it
http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30100-1290655,00.html?f=rssI don’t think it is. I think they’re talking separately about the two projects. The sentence structure isn’t great though
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.
cstephion wasn’t there an amendment to the GCD scheme last year that allowed increased height. As others have said, the 20 per cent was a requirement, no getting out of it. Watchtower looks awful in fairness but what’s being built is a massive improvement on the STW proposal.
That Dunne would probably take legal action (as well as some of the other bidders) and that the architects would too has been known for ages in fairness.
I wouldn’t trust anything the DDDA says in relation to anything to do with this project.They’ve gotten facts wrong consistently along the way and issued inaccurate information, by intention or by design, to the media.Anyway there’ll be at least one court case in relation to this
@darkman wrote:
180m!!!!!!! This is more like it!:D Not sure whether they should have dropped the twisting design though.
Strangely the DDDA dont seem to acknowledge that it is 180m high?? They say 120m?
I have to ask is Frank McDonald sure about the height? It does not look 180m high?
Doesn’t he say that includes the wind turbines on top
