Sunday 17 May 2009

Dublin Sites at a standstill

Mother Redcap's

The boarded-up building off Thomas Street pegged was to form part of a €2.6bn Covent Garden-style revamp for the Liberties, taking in the DCC-owned Lord Iveagh Market. A Martin Keane-led company formed a joint venture with DCC and an epic round of planning, public consultation and legal process began. Six years on, the development is now on hold as it is "not currently viable", said a DCC source.

The Markets

Closed and disused for over a decade, a €400m redevelopment for the huge former Victorian fish and vegetable markets site between Henry Street and Smithfield is part of DCC's development plan 2005-2011 for a commercial and residential complex reaching up to six storeys. A preferred bidder for phase 1 was selected in 2007 but "no contracts have been signed to date", the DCC said.

New Garda Headquarters, Kevin Street

A planned five-storey plus two-level basement build over a 5,000sq m site beside the existing garda station was to be a new Garda Divisional HQ replacing Harcourt Terrace. The OPW said "in the current economic climate it is doubtful if tenders will be sought in the near future".

Seven Adelaide Road

The fire-damaged Georgian shell at 7 Adelaide Road, Dublin 2, is a one-acre registered derelict site which has been for sale for over a year at €1.195m. Owner David Grant of 61 Haddington Road, Dublin 4, was the subject of an RTE Prime Time programme in 2005 and later pleaded guilty in court to allowing dangerous buildings to be used as hostel accommodation and carrying out unauthorised works on the protected buildings on Gardiner Street. He committed to selling Adelaide Road and his Haddington Road home to pay to improve the hostel and rectify the illegal works.

Boland's Mill

The Dublin 4 landmark site is owned by Sean Kelly's Benton Property Holding, which beat Treasury Holdings and Danninger with a €42m winning bid for the site in 2004. Permission is being sought to turn it into Boland's Mill Wharf, a 41,000sq m office and hotel complex.

However "while it's still in the pipeline, it may not proceed in the current climate", a spokeswoman at Benton said. The three massive 1940s silos (one is 21 storeys) and Victorian former storehouse stand between Grand Canal Dock and Barrow Street in what has become a major business district.

Carry on regardless sites...

Vicar Street/Molyneux Yard

Harry Crosbie said last month he'll go ahead with his eight-storey 194-bed 'no star' hotel at the vacant lot behind his Vicar Street music venue on Thomas Street, Dublin 8.

Carlton building

Under hoarding and a vacant cause célèbre for years, the art deco fronted building is part of Chartered Land's Dublin Central development, some of which is still in planning process. Planning approved development has started on the former Royal Dublin Hotel next door, which is part of the same project, and Chartered Lands chief executive Dominic Deeny says the scheme will proceed as planned, with "the next economic upturn" in mind.

The Irish Bottle Factory site, Poolbeg Peninsula, Ringsend

Bought for a price tag of €412m in 2006 by a consortium including the Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA) and headed by developer Bernard McNamara, the 24-acre site will be part of the first phase of a new Poolbeg urban quarter development proposal by the DDDA that finished its public consultation stage
recently.

Sunday Tribune

www.buckplanning.ie

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