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That proposed “park and ride” facility is a joke, surely?
The developer has some cheek to try to justify building a mini-shopping strip near what is a major road interchange (and presumably will be a motorway interchange once Limerick to Nenagh is done) by calling it a “park ‘n ride” facility as if they were providing a piece of public transport infrastructure. Park n’ ride facilites don’t need banks, shops or anything else as presumably all these facilities are available to the users once the alight from the bus in the centre of the city.
Of course this is probably going to the county’s planning office who are likely to be happy to rubber stamp it for the rates continuing the “donutting” of Limerick.
That’s a huge improvement over the previous proposal. However I still have a couple of reservations.
The interface with O’Connell Street is better but still has flaws. One is the angle of the “main” new street; i.e. the one which opens onto O’Connell Street. They’ve made a strange decision to make this street square with Moore Street. I’d argue that this really needs to be at right angles to O’Connell Street instead. This would properly acknowledge the prominence of O’Connell Street and its importance relative to Moore Street. This would also help it blend into the general environment; every other street and lane meets O’Connell street at right angles.
Like gunter, I don’t like the facade retention on O’Connell Street. Without getting philosophical about it whether retaining facades is justifiable at all, I feel that if you are going to engage in facadism, then at least do it properly and execute the deception properly. I fail to see the point of retaining facades when they are going to be used as components of the new facade. It seems to me to offer the worst of both worlds – offering neither a convincing deception nor an opportunity to create something new. I also fear the extra floors over the retained facades will unbalance the street.
I’m uncomfortable with the destruction of a complete victorian terrace on Henry Street. Replacing such buildings with more modern ones has never resulted in an improvement to this street in my opinion and I don’t expect this to be any different. Henry Street is starting to look more and more generic as it is.
Still, like I said, a big improvement. Not quite “there” for me yet but close.
This same irresponsible reaction by people occurred during the law for mandatory helmet wearing was brought in for users of Motorbikes. Helmets help to greatly reduce head trauma. This is the reason why everyone should wear one, not because someone is tell you to do so.
Sorry you are arguing by aristotelian logic; as an admirer of empiricism, I need more to be convinced.
The case for motorbike helmets is black and white and has been proven so in study after study. Ditto for seatbelts.
This is absolutely not the case for bicycle helmets; there have very conflicting results in the research – google it and you will find studies which have found them to cause more harm than good. Thus criticising someone for not wearing a helmet is unreasonable in my opinion.
The case for bicycle helmets seems to largely based on the idea that “it stands to reason that they improve safety”. On that basis, would you criticise pedestrians for not wearing helmets? I’m sure many die of head trauma when involved in accidents with motorised traffic.
Gordon Rowland of the council’s road design department,said the bridge…
Need any more be said? They’ve been lusting after this for this for years.
What a way to f*ck up the compelling rhythm of bridges along the Liffey. What’s galling is the lies and deliberate deceptions used in the PR to justify this. It won’t “open up” anything in the city in the same way that D’Olier St. doesn’t “open up” anything. It “opens up” a corridor which goes nowhere except to inpenetrable side of Trinity. Why not admit that this is a traffic engineer’s bridge and nothing else. The mention of a Luas using the bridge is simply a deliberate lie; BX is off the cards for the forseeable future.
Worse, this will severely compromise the symmety of the setting of O’Connell Bridge. It will also devalue it’s significance by reducing the amount of river it commands. Leaving O’Connell Bridge to rot (besides inserting weirdly shaped balusters – bulb like instead of teardrop shaped) and using it as a Taxi rank while persuing this project is absolutely typical.
Why not spend the money on a proper restoration of O’Connell Bridge? It’s plenty wide for bikes, pedestrians, wheelchairs and anything else and it actually leads to somewhere people actually want to go. It is part of a carefully designed set piece and is one of the most important locations in the city.
The egos required to confidently ignore the significance of the context and condition of O’Connell Bridge must be immense. Do any of the philistines in DCC ever even wonder why other European cities which straddle rivers (I know aspiring to Paris is expecting too much) treat their historic bridges with loving care and think about the impression such bridges leave on visitors?
I’m gutted. Limerick takes a step closer to being Ireland’s answer to a soulless, UK provincial town; Swansea – anyone?
:rolleyes: Horrible, horrible. Arthur’s Quay on steroids.
There’s so much brownfield in Limerick why destroy a huge chunk of historical stock? It can only be justified by a hatred of Georgian and historic buildings as none of these buildings are derelict given they are in active use (or were up to a year ago or so). The current terrace from the bridge to Ellen St. will be missed. It’s the same idiocy which welcomed the destruction of the old Cannocks building (and most of that block), championed the Sarsfield St. Dunnes, the creation of Liddy St., Arthur’s Quay, etc.. And no, a single restoration along with fascade retention (an 80s concept which at this stage would be laughed at by any enlightened planning dept) does not imply anything but the meanest lip-service to respecting Limerick’s historic structure. This developing is so dated in concept and execution it’s laughable.
Mark my words, in less than 20 years time, people will look at “old” photos of Patrick St. and Ellen St. as they are now and wonder wtf were people thinking?
gunter, someone else has mentioned it but the point is to have a university which can compete internationally. And no, it is not just a small niche of highly technical which benefit from having a critical mass. The reality is the opposite; there are only a tiny number of fields which do not particularly benefit from having greater mass. On an international scale most of our university departments can be beaten in graduate and research work by UK universities you mightn’t even have heard of. We generally are unable to compete on a european level never mind internationally. If you enrole in a graduate program in a top school in the states, you can expect to have access to internationally renown experts in the field at the least through their lectures; these are often people who are renown outside academia. It’s like a pyramid: you need a huge under-graduate program; this supports and feeds into busy research and thought graduate courses; which in turn supports active doctoral and post-doctoral reseach; and the whole structure is topped off by the academic superstars.
What’s the advantage of that?
To have at least one Irish university which could conceivably compete internationally in terms of research?
The huge redundency in the system whereby every 3rd level institute in the country has a department of this or that means that none really achieves the critical mass to draw international academics of note or build successful research units. Even relatively successful departments here are very insular in my experience.
I misspent a couple of years doing post-graduate research; there were 3 or 4 3rd level institutions in Dublin where I could have done my work. While there was some cooperation, the reality was that the respective departments were effectively competing among themselves for students, staff and government/commercial funding.
Separate colleges under the University of Dublin makes sense assuming the departments are also amalgamated. Enrollment numbers of 50,000 doesn’t even qualify a university as being substantial by international standards. 100,000 might get you noticed. Such student numbers provide the financial support for active and successful research departments as well as potential post-graduate fodder. In theory the NUI is a single university with constituent colleges but the reality of it’s stucture mean that it is misleading to compare its student numbers with those of universities outside Ireland; UCD is the de facto largest “university” in Ireland with about 20k.
Like much of our infrastructure, it is spread too thinly which is inefficient and uncompetitive.
It’s one of the few distinctive buildings that have appeared in Dublin in the last 10 or 20 years. It has the potential to achieve some sort of iconic status. Maybe that’s overstating it but I’d be happy to see anything displace the false skyscraper cluster behind George’s Quay as a symbol of modern Dublin.
Modern convention centres are always going to be somewhat bulky; this design doesn’t attempt to hide the bulk – function before form – but distracts you from it with the intersecting cylinder. It is striking and the blandness of the north docks needs more striking modern buildings. I guess I like it – certainly relatively to the neighbouring modern buildings.
To say that it’s “the ugliest building ever seen. EVER” must be .. like .. the supidist .. like.. thing ever like written… EVER.
Passing this corner recently, the results of this planning fiasco are plain to see.
Given the highish walls around this site, you’d hope that the impact would be minimised but there is now a very ugly blank modern “gable” overlooking the Orchard Road South wall. The new building is visible from the gate and over the wall from Palmerston Park and is horrendous. It easily matches the gombeen tastlessness of the once-off faux-Georgian piles dotting the countryside.
This is simply a shameful example of planning failure: the ignorance and arrogance of the owners – not even offering the pretence of caring about the planning procedures and the bored laziness and incompetence of the planning officials involved.
I am being bitter I know – and it is no compensation for the reality that the original distinctive and attractive period building is never coming back and the new pile-of-shite is there for the foreseeable future – but I feel a tiny flicker of satisfaction knowing that the owners’ laughable taste and ignorant behaviour is going to hurt them financially. Unlike hoping that the planning dept would actually do it’s job, I’d be more optimistic in this regard; suspect that if they ever try to sell, they’d be lucky to recover half of what they’ve spent on it; the morons have pissed away 3 or 4 million euro.
Unfortunately its design (even if executed properly) is not at all suitable to this space – interupting a very busy pedestrian flow. I like the idea of an “open” fountain but if you are going to put a fountain in a place like this you should create some sort of barrier between the fountain and the usable footpath. Also this is a particularly windy spot so that the fountain tended to send off a spray. I like the simple design but the location and context should have been researched a bit more. Maybe, it would be better situated in a park or as part of a collection of street “furniture”.
@dave123 wrote:
Can anyone post some images of the Georgion buildings that are located on the Opera site? I think we are talking very extreme here.
See my post on the previous page, earlier in the thread; I think it is number 1898.
@dave123 wrote:
I’m all up for retaining Limerick’s historic core. But progess is also required if a city is moving into the 21st century. Jimg if I was to have that attitude with everything. Then there is not point in building anything modern in this city, absaloutley nothing. You either want progress or you don’t
Sorry this is nonsense. I imagine everyone posting to this thread wants to see Limerick progress and improve. To accuse everyone who disagrees with your ideas as being against progress is insulting. I am all for modern development of Limerick and I love modern architecture and buildings; much of what has been built recently in Limerick has been very positive. I just don’t think the wholescale demolition of a long Georgian terrace to be replaced by a cheap shopping centre which is already out of date is a good idea. I’ve already expressed the reasons why I’m not impressed by this development (see the my earlier post with the screen grabs); I’d hope for better for Limerick.
In fact I would argue that your attitude is one which is holding Limerick back and will end up confining it to being a second rate city. The best and most popular cities in Ireland and the world have preserved their historic buildings. Believe it or not, a shopping centre and a M&S will not get Limerick into the guide books or improve its reputation. Preserving and restoring as much of what is the 2nd greatest collection of Georgian buildings in Ireland would do something. This isn’t a contentious or hard to comprehend point. I recently talked to an English visitor to Limerick and what impressed them was the Georgian architecture; they couldn’t believe it actually as they had never heard about this aspect of Limerick. They may even spread the word. I can’t think of any visitors to the city recommending the place because it has a great Tesco’s or M&S.
@dave123 wrote:
The down side some of the derelict buildings have to go.
The buildings are not derelict. Repeatedly claiming that they are don’t make it so.
So what’s your point.. Let this city remain in stagnation while the suburbs spread left right and centre.
I’d estimate that maybe 5% of the built up area of Limerick consists of coherent Georgian streetscape. Blaming the stagnation of the city on their continued existence is absolute nonsense, sorry. Fairy’s point was obvious; these buildings restored would demonstrate pride in the city, its history and its future. Visit any great city in the world both large and small and the common factor is pride and preservation of their unique historic stock. You seem to aspire to turning Limerick into the typical British provincial small city (Swansea is an example I’ve recently spent time in – contrast with Bath, for example, which has preserved it’s Georgian heritage).
But the dereliction is ten time worse than any imaginable development that will take its place.
Very little or none of the listed streets are derelict by any definition of the word. Of course buildings which have purchased in order to land bank a large development plot and have their tennents removed and are are left unoccupied are going to look neglected. Is Sarsfield St. ten times better after the development that took place there? (See the “Old Illustrations of Limerick” thread for pictures of what was there before).
Hi iomaniacht. I agree that it is vital that Limerick develop and embrace retail. However I have two objections to the proposed development. First of all, I think we should be very very careful before sacraficing historic stock. Check out the “Old Illustrations of LImerick” thread that Tuborg links to; it should give anyone pause for thought before recommending the destruction of more of Limerick’s historic stock. Patrick St./Rutland St. should be one of the most important thoroughfares in the city acting as a link between the new (relatively speaking – 200 years old) with the old city. The Georgian grain and uniformity is truely impressive. (I’ve grabbed and attached some images from maps.live.com to show what will be lost.) By the way some superficial neglect is inevitable when a developer land banks and evicts tennant retailers and businesses but I don’t believe that the structure of these buildings has been compromised.
My second objection is on the basis of the frankly old-fashioned nature of the development which I assume is driven by the desire to keep costs down. This is a bit of fantasy I guess but ideally, I’d love to see the whole of Rutland and Patrick Streets restored sensitively with small boutique street facing units. I’d like two new intersecting pedestrian streets permeating the block – these would be lined with fronts to ultra-modern larger unit as are required by many retailers these days. Some underground parking should be provided of course but by facing and integrating into the grain of the city, such a development would provide synergy with all the surrounding streets promoting redevelopment all around.
On the other hand what is proposed is is a large monolithic block which will face the existing streets with curtain walling and more than likely will suck life and vitality out of the surrounding streets and blocks. This effect is visible around the other developments in the city which follow this model notwithstanding the differences as pointed out by CologneMike.
I also recognise that there is a dillema here; investment and development is very badly needed in the city so it does not feel right to be so negative. However, I feel that a development of this type will – after an initial period of excitement – be very detrimental in the long term to this part of the city. From what I saw the last time I was in Limerick; I think the Henry St/Bedford row area is one example of the type of regeneration the city should be aiming for; pedestrianised streets and the integration of the existing street pattern and as much historic stock as possible.
I didn’t like the original proposal much as the history of such monolithic developments in Limerick is dire (Dunnes Liddy Street or Arthur’s Quay are nearby examples) and it was pretty much the Arthur’s Quay model but bigger; i.e. buy up as much of an entire city block as possible and level most of it except for a couple of token Georgians creating an “inward looking” city block with integrated car parking which extinguishes the life of the surrounding street scape except for streams of pedestrians and traffic coming and going from the entrances.
I didn’t like the gimmicky and OTT Patrick St./Ellen St. entrance of the original plan either. But at least (after ABP had their say), the design left some of the original grain and Georgian character of the surrounding streets. This is much worse and looks ridiculous; a truly massive monolithic development with a couple of Patrick St. Georgean fascades retained; destroying a couple of centuries of Limerick’s history in a stroke.
Limerick city centre needs to compete for retail but developments like this (and we’ve heard the hype before to justify them) destroy the one unique feature that the city centre can offer that no out-of-town centre can and that is a street/city scape and genuine historical building stock. I’m not at all fond of the toytown architecture of Cruises Street but it is evidently very successful in retail terms; at least it seems that way in terms of footfall. It has survived where the monolithic and inward looking shopping centres have failed after a few years of initial excitement. It is surprising that the planners in Limerick have not recognised the virtues of this type of model of retail development offering permeability and public street space leaving existing building stock intact as much as is practical. Other planners have seen the light; all the proposed city centre retail developments in Dublin feature giving new streets to the public realm. A development like this for Dublin wouldn’t survive the first pre-planning meeting and I don’t see why Limerick has to accept something so inferior and something so destructive.
The BX bridge will be a disaster. It will destroy the context for O’Connell Street bridge. It will create a nasty break in in the pleasing (slight) regularity to the series of Liffey crossings which form the spine of the city.
Allowing free reign to my suspicions, it’s obvious that the Roads and Traffic people in DCC have been intent on having a bridge at this location for many years. I seriously doubt that the “preferred” BX route is actually preferred by the RPA. I suspect that in order to “buy off” the strenuous and public objection from the DCC to linking the Luas lines, they came up with the dogs dinner plan (60% more expensive by the way than the the most obvious route) which incorporated this bridge. It’s obvious that DCC’s objections on the basis of their love and concern for O’Connell St. and the passage of busses around the end of Grafton St. were b*llox given that they’ve implicitly given their backing to this massively disruptive route which still involves digging up O’Connell St and going around the Nassau/Grafton St. corner. Once the RPA included the “bribe” of this bridge in a hacked together last-minute plan, DCC dropped their objections.
I was hoping the obvious flaws with the suggested route would confine the idea to the bin where it belongs and initially things looked that way as further work on BX was deferred in favour of more pressing RPA work. Now it looks like the most objectionable part of the whole route F (the bridge) will be built without the principal reason for building it purely to satisfy the whimsy of some traffic engineers in DCC.
What disgusts me is the state of O’Connell Bridge and I do not accept the excuse that we should wait ’til metro north is built to do something about it. It’s been in an embarassing state for decades. This bridge should be a centrepiece in the city and should be maintained and preserved as such in the way that similar structures are treated in cities which have any tiny bit of appreciation for historical fabric and are not run by a roads and traffic department. The BX bridge is actually completely typical; DCC devote so much energy and concern into procuring a “shiney new” bridge right beside the most important bridge in the city instead of putting a fraction of the effort into maintaining O’Connell Bridge in any form beyond the absolute bare minimum. All the marketing and PR w*nk from DCC about their aspirations for Dublin is shown up by their treatment of O’Connell Bridge. It is in awe that I try to imagine the size of the ego required to think that you could improve the one of the most important WSC set-pieces in the city by plonking another bridge 90m away destroying any remaining symmetry to it’s context. Meanwhile the existing bridge is in a foul state.
It looks like a vast expanse of open space which I’m not keen on. Given our weather and the location, I suspect that regularly this will be a bleak windswept desert. I’d rather more was packed into the site and that they made some attempt at creating an urban feel by building a denser variety of buildings.
Is there any chance that this one will attract a wider cross-section of the city community, because the College Green one has been full of knobs since it opened 2 & a bit years ago?
If there is a knob skew in their customer demographic, I assume it’s due to the fact that their coffee is muck and I’d imagine that knobs have little taste or appreciation for decent coffee.
Before you draw any conclusions though you should establish whether its exclusively the “knob factor” or whether it’s just the fact that you’ve reached an age where being in the proximity of teenagers socialising brings you out in a rash.
Good try, Rory W, but buildings can’t be designed for the ‘lower orders’; the reason why penthouses are cool is because the rich can afford to stuff them with gadgets and compensate otherwise for the loss of immediate amenity space (and they can adopt ‘Lord of the Universe’ isolation). The poor can’t do that, which is why so many urban ‘projects’ fail.
You couldn’t be more wrong from what I saw of the recent (within the last year) documentary about or featuring this particular tower. Plenty of people living there who were certainly not rich but enjoyed living there and were proud of the building. The attempt to provide suburban social housing has failed even more miserably in Ireland so I don’t believe the overall form of the archictecture dictates whether such schemes fail or succeed. To be honest, it’s a pretty bizzare idea that some types of accomodation are only suitable for the rich.
It’s back to the drawing board for everything that’s not already underway as part of the Transport 21 umbrella if you read between the lines of recent ministerial releases. I expect the Green Luas to eventually be extended north and Liffey Junction is as likely as anywhere else to terminate it but nothing will be started before the next phase which could mean 2015. Lucan Luas is not going to happen in the current phase either. We’ll get the Interconnector, Dunboyne spur, metro north and possibly metro west, the Luas extensions which are already underway and more buses. I’d be happy enough with that shopping list, to be honest. Outside of rail, the likes of the eastern bypass linking the port tunnel to Leapardstown and the “outer M50” have been explicitly killed for the current transport infrastructure phase.
