Radioactiveman
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A decision is due to made by teh end of this month on Frinailla’s plans for the former Good Shepherd Convent in Sunday’s Well. The company submitted an application in February to construct 274 residential units in the former religious institution and its grounds. The original buildings are to be conserved, with modern extensions demolished to make way for 26 apartments in the building itself. Within the grounds, it is proposed to xonstruct 10 apartment buildings which range in height from 8 to 3 storeys. 10 3-storey townhouses are also proposed. A 3 level basement carpark is also proposed.
Further information was submitted by the company, after a request by the planning authority. This submission was made at the start of July. Third party submissions have also been lodged by a number of interested parties, including local residents and An Taisce.
The central part of the convent, including the chapel was badly damaged by fire a number of years ago, prior to Frinailla purchasing the site. This was after protracted attempts to obtain planning permission for a large number of student apartments on the site. The site was also previously owned by UCC who had some interest in making it the base for the university’s Arts faculty.
The new railings at the Beamish and Crawford site on South Main Street have been mentioned here before. They are pretty appalling by any standards and detract hugely from what is a beautiful building. A poured concrete wall has been topped with bog standard galvanised steel railings, and then large square bars have been inserted in the gaps in between. Not alone those it look bad, it indicates some level of incompetence that the architect/engineer could not build a wall and find some railings to match.
They were being painted earlier today, so maybe there’s more to come. I’ve attached some images of the monstrosity below.
Its a tiny point, but take a look at the fleur de lis on the large supporting bars- if these had been omitted the look of the whole thing might have been improved- at least everything would have been at a uniform height.
ABP have granted permission to Meteor Communications Ltd. for the retention of antennae and dishes within the steeple and bell tower of St. Nicholas’ Church on Cove Street, Cork. This overrules the decision of the City COuncil who refused permission for retention saying it would, “compromise the integrity of the bell tower and steeple and introduce a stringent feature which would seriously injure and be out of character wit the important architectural features and the historic fabric of the structure.”
The church building, which is a protected structure, has been deconsecrated and is currently undergoing conversion to office space for the use of the Probation Service.
The application sought to retain six antennae which were mounted in the top opes of the steeple, facing west, east and north; to retain microwave dishes at the second floor level behind new louvre screens of the bell tower; and various related fixtures and fittings.
The ABP inspector reported that the antennae were “conspicuous in the views from within the area and detract from the architectural integrity of the steeple. In effect, the antennae block up the openings, (from the inner side) and the material in which they are fabricated is incompatible with and detracts from the ashlar limestone fabric and decorative detail of the steeple. The removal and replacement of the existing louvres at second floor is considered an unessential removal of historic fabric. “
Despite the inspector reccomending refusal, the board overruled this, citing the need to improve the mobile communications network in the country.Image of the steeple of St.Nicholas’ Church, with antennae clearly visible in opes:
OK, firstly I must commend Malec on his extensive photographic tour of some of the new developments around the City. That sort of thing, along with the heartfelt comments from RepublicofCork are what this thread needs to keep it lively and interesting.
With regard to RepublicofCork’s comments, I don’t know if I entirely agree with all of the points made. I’d agree that there seems to be certain very high profile cases where the advice of planners (both at CIty Council and ABP) has been completely ignored by the Manager. My own pet project, City Square/Lady’s Well in Blackpool is a case in point. However, I think it is to go a bit far to suggest that because a decision was taken which was counter to the position you would take (or took), that there is wide spread corruption going on involving City Council and developers. I’m afraid I simply don’t subscribe to the conspiracy theories and the demonising of developers as a group.
Cork is a merchant city and the vast, vast majority of what is now the historic stock of buildings which we should rightly protect were built by merchants/landowners or what we would now call developers. Developers (although it may not seem like it) have a limited budget with which to construct a building. They have no wish to get involved in lengthy, drawn out negotiations with planning authorities and they generally have no wish to disturb local residents. For that reason, most major projects in the city are of a reasonable standard when they reach Navigation House. Some are excellent and others are poor. To be fair, the majority of the rubbish is weeded out pretty fast. For example, the early proposals for the Capital Cinema site and the Cornmarket Centre site. What we’re left with are solid, decent, mostly well designed buildings which add to an area. Whether you love them architecturally or not is not the point. You either like it or you don’t: some love the new Carrolls Quay apartments, others don’t. Some people (God help them) actually like the Victoria Cross apartments, others do not. I would argue that Victoria Cross was a bad mistake by planners, but I would not suggest that it was part of some conspiracy to scar that part of the City. Nobody needs the hassle of CSD, who quite reasonably, are on guard against other developments in the area.
Republic asks the question as to whether we are trying to “reinvent the city like Bristol or Newcastle or Barcelona?”. And thats that problem: we hold up cities such as Bristol as some sort of utopia for architects everywhere despite the fact that there has been some terrible buildings constructed in these cities in the past few years. Not every single building in these cities are worldclass. Some are excellent, some are poor, most are average. Don’t get me wrong, in our planning we should always strive for high quality, but we should not have unreasonably high expectations!As for the 50/51 Popes Quay situation, there should be no railings there. Full stop. Even the planners agree on that. I’m not particularly bothered who “owns” the land. I’d suggest that it is not of much recreational use to the City, the most you could do is site a park bench there! Its use is as an open space in which to display the superb Civic Thrust building. I’d suggest we will see the unauthorised railings removed in the near future.
As for Jury’s, its a very fine development. Exponentially better than its predecessor and will provide a pleasant vista heading west from the City Centre.
@Micko wrote:
Just wondering but could anybody find a picture of Merchants Quay pre shopping centre ?
Have been looking for one of those for ages. To no avail. The examiner published a picture in an article they did comparing the ‘new’ Merchants Quay and the old one, about a year ago. Sadly, I forgot to keep the picture.
University Cllege Cork have applied to CCC for permission to construct a new pedestrain bridge across the south channel of the river Lee, linking the Brookfield Health Sciences Complex on the south side of the river to the former Greyhound Race Track on the northern side.
UCC have permission to develop an Information Technology building at the Greyhound Track site. Issues of funding for this (IT building) project are still being sorted out.Work is currently ongoing at the “Bachelors on the Quay” site on, funnily enough, Bachelor’s Quay in the City to convert it for use by the Cope foundation for office, educational and training use.
Next door to this, an application for planning permission is due to be lodged by Cork Christian Trust for the remainder of the retail space in this mixed use development. Said retail space has remainded as empty as the rest of the building is ugly since it was built almost a decade ago.
CCT are seeking permission to convert the space; which fronts onto Bachelor’s Quay and Grattan Street, for use as seminar, office, radio studio, cafe and reatil use. This would seem to tie in with the social/community based uses planned for the neighbouring unit and in the abscence of any likely retail activity at the site, is surely a welcome development. Anything is better than looking at those boarded up units.
University College Cork have applied to CCC for permission to construct a new pedestrain bridge across the south channel of the river Lee, linking the Brookfield Health Sciences Complex on the south side of the river to the former Greyhound Race Track on the northern side.
UCC have permission to develop an Information Technology building at the Greyhound Track site. Issues of funding for this (IT building) project are still being sorted out.
A very recent image of the new Cork School of Music.
and an image of the finished project.
“With an area of over 12,900 sq.m., will be the first purpose built building of its kind in Ireland, consisting of specialist tuition areas, rehearsal hall, live recording studio, drama suite and lecture rooms. The school was the first educational PPP project undertaken by the Irish Government.
Forming its heart and rising up five storeys at the centre of the school is the concourse, providing circulation and visually connecting the many inter-related activities of the school.”Good to see this project making real progress given its disasterous start.
There has been a serious breach of planning regulations at a development on College Road.
“Cliffords” shop (well known to generations of students) as well as no.’s 1 and 2 Westbourne, College Road have (over the weekend, surprise, surprise) been reduced to rubble to make way for a new development on the site. Planning permission for such demolition has not been granted.
PP was recently conditionally granted (04/28769) for the demolition of a portion of the existing shop and the dwellings and to construct 4 no. terraced townhouses along Highfield Avenue. With regard to the properties 1 and 2 Westbourne it was intended to convert these into 4 no. apartments.
Permission had previously been refused by CCC and ABP for the development of 8 no. student apartments on 4 floors at 1-3 Westbourne, College Road.
The applications were made by a Ms. Ann Clifford.The Planning Department at CCC can be contacted as follows, if you feel this merits a complaint:
Telephone: + 353 21 4924321 / 4924324 / 4924325 / 4924720 / 4924722 / 4924723Fax: + 353 21 4924706
e-mail: planning@corkcity.ie
@Spinal Tap wrote:
Mr & Mrs Spinal Tap picked up 2 Dutch tourists thumbing from Cobh to Cork on Saturday last and they were asking us what there was for tourists in Cork City.They had done the English market,Shandon,St.Finbarrs and the city centre area in a whole morning ! They loved Cork and thought it was a great city after 3 days in Dublin and being ripped off at Oxygen which was a dissapointment for them but there was nothing for them to do here and keep them in the city apart from bars and restaurants shops etc.We directed them to Kinsale,Clonakilty etc.
Cork needs more visitor attractions :-
Outdoor spaces / parks ah la Park Guell Barcelona
City Quays under utilised for proper paving seating landscaping ( cars parked right up to river ) massive potential.
Maritime Museum in the docklands.
Indoor Aquarium similar to the one in La Rochell France
Arts Museum / Venue like Gateshead or dare I say it Bilbao Guggenheim !
Feel free to add to listI’d always point visitors in the direction of The Cork Gaol in Sundays Well, the Museum in Fitzgerald park, the ogham corridor in UCC and St.Finbarres Cathedral. For a city the size of cork, I believe we have our fair share of visitor attractions. That being said, Spinal Tap has come up with a good Wish List for the city in terms of attractions. I’d add to that as follows:
A national interactive science museum
A national events centreNotice I said national. There is no reason why national institutions should not be based in Cork, or for that matter Limerick or Galway, etc. This government is determined to decentralise pen-pushers without decentralising any of the good stuff!
Feel free to add to the list and we’ll come up with some sort of top 10.The fact Dunnes have two outlets in close proximity in Cork City is perfectly standard and is common around the world. The two outlets serve (at the moment) wildly different purposes. The redevelopment of its Patrick Street store and surrounding space will see the company push its image into the realms of Roches and Debenhams- with whom it really wants to compete, not its historical competitor Quinnsworth/Tesco.
So, as one Cork retail giant makes even more progress, another looks set to disappear from the retail scene, and our major cities for good. Media reports this morning suggest that Debenhams are almost certain to acquire the lease of all of Roches Stores properties. This includes prime department stores in Waterford, Cork and Limerick amongst others.
Roches move out of retail has been on the cards for many years, with the stores now merely a collection of individual third party retailers such as Topman, Pull and Bear, etc. ‘Roches’ has for a good many years been just a name over the door.
Its unfortunate that another Irish Retail giant is to dissapear and it is also unfortunate that Patrick Street will become further cleansed of any link to Cork’s retail past. It makes the realisation of Dunnes’ Patrick Street development even more important.Thanks for taking the initiative AHA. Clearly the individual threads were not working! Nobody is going to open up an individual thread for the often small, seemingly insignificant bits of news that pops up on the ‘Developments in Cork’ threads- despite the fact that it all adds to creating one of the livliest threads on the site.
CCC have voted to dispose of that site on Popes Quay for the princely sum of one euro. In fairness, this talk of getting thousands for the site was a bit of a red herring given, to my knowledge, CCC had never owned the site up until the short time when they transferred the site to its new owner.
What I think is more relevant to this thread is the erection of a new wall/fence around the site. Does this destroy the view of the Civic Thrust building? Does it even having planning? Any info?Marks and Spensers have been given permission for a new shopfront on St. Patricks Street. This is in keeping with recent refurbishment work done on the interior.
I’m off on holidays!! Hope to have lots of exciting news when I get back!
@daniel_7 wrote:
just read in the paper the other day that as part of the docklands strategy there is to be something to be incorporated into the plan to attract more tourism to cork like a interactive science museam or something stupid like that!………..and incorporate a temple bar type development maybe around the station square(as cork is also badly behind when it comes to nightclubs) and these factors together would make cork a very attractive place to market for a short break city getaway!
Whats so wrong with an interactive science museum? Every develped country has at least one, most many more….I guess we can always bring the kids to this ‘new temple bar’! No thanks.
The owners of the Millfield service station (Billy and Ciaran O’Riordan), adjacent to Blackpool Retail Park on the old Mallow Road are to apply for permission to replace the filling station with a mixed use development comprising a residential and a office/retail block with a height of 6 storeys. The site is in close proximity to Millfield cottages which are protected structures.
The development will contain 54 apartments with landscaped roof gardens and public and private gardens at ground level. Plans are for 4 commercial units in a seperate block, along with 11 office units.Red arrow (to extreme left of image) indicates approximate site location.
@theblimp wrote:
What will be more interesting will be to see who REALLY benefits from this (if the CPO is successful) in the longer run
I think you’re being unduly cynical blimp. The plans for a massive public park at the showgrounds site have been around for a while in various forms and recognised in various dockland plans isued by CCC (see image above). Expect this to be rubber stamped in the forthcoming South Docks Local Area Plan.
I would not be overly worried about the prospect of a city the size of Cork having two large public parks. Indeed, in the long term, another large park should be forthcoming to the west of the city. Cork is in dire need of such green, well-maintained public open space.
It is not surprising that CCC would seek to accomodate the GAA at their current site, given the income generating reality and potential of a major sports arena- as opposed to mooted plans to shift operations to the Blarney area. In that light, it is obvious from recent refurbishment work at Croke Park and forthcoming work at Landsdowne Road, that to allow large scale (or even small scale) residential development around such venues is asking for trouble in the long run.The CPO for the Showgrounds is designed, in the first instance to allow for a large public park at the site, capable of holding outdoor concerts, circuses, agricultural shows and ‘live at the marquee’ type events, as well as allowing a use as a genuine public park- something which the current tenants have not been able to offer.
As a secondary issue, the move should make it much more probable that an agreement can be made between GAA and CCC regarding the relatively small amount of space required by the former for a complete redevelopment of Pairc Ui Caoimh.
In my mind, the Munster Agricultural Society were a very lazy tenant, unwilling to come to agreement with their landlords and neighbours for the good of the City as a whole. The Munster Showground site was grossly under utilised and is in need of a radical overhaul.
The development comes as CCC are calling for submissions for their South Docks Local Area Plan.
Also, news this morning that CCC have abandoned plans for a park and ride facility at Tinkers Cross, Mayfield. A recent report commissioned by the Council had reccomended that this was the best site for such a facility, however sustained public opposition put an end to plans.
