CORK CITY COUNCIL is poised to award a lucrative contract to a PR firm to brand and market its multi-billion docklands regeneration project.
The council remained tightlipped last night on who has landed the contract or on how much it is worth.
The initial phase could be worth tens of thousands of euro to the successful public relations firm.
But the company could be working on the project, which will involve branding, marketing and advertising, for at least a decade as the council oversees the estimated €10 billion regeneration of the extensive docklands region as a new waterfront quarter.
The news emerged yesterday as the largest landowner of docklands real estate put the first phase of its ambitious €2bn development on public display in City Hall.
Origin Enterprises, a subsidiary of the IAWS milling group, owns 32 acres of docklands.
It is seeking planning permission initially for a two acre waterfront site on Kennedy Quay and Victoria Road.
The first phase of its Port Quarter project is valued at about €200 million.
It will have 165 large apartments, and 24,600sq m of offices, in buildings ranging from eight to 11 storeys tall, with basement parking, shops and a creche.
No building will be taller than IAWS’s existing grain silos — for example at the R&H Hall site — all of which are set for demolition.
The only building to be retained is the red-brick Odlums building, dating back to the 1890s, which will most likely be used for cultural purposes.
Origin describes Port Quarter as an 18 to 20-year plan and believes the first phase could be delivered in late 2010.
This planning application follows the lodging of plans by Howard Holdings in March for its €1bn Atlantic Quarter project further downstream in the docklands, near Páirc Uí Chaoimh.
Now that redevelopment plans are rolling in, City Hall wants to hire public relations experts to advise how it should brand and market its vision for docklands.
Up to 50 firms pitched for the contract and they were shortlisted down to five.
Representatives of each of the shortlisters made presentations to a panel last Friday and it is understood that a firm has been chosen.
But city manager Joe Gavin has to sign off on the contract first — a process that is expected to take several weeks.
Irish Examiner
www.buckplanning.ie
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