Paypal go to Dundalk

hardybuck

merlante wrote: »

There are two obvious points that nobody seems to be making:

1. In order for a large office to be there in the first place, somebody has to build it. If not the company moving in, to their own specifications, then a large company that has just left (ouch).

2. What is wrong with taking a decent sized building and extending it over the years. Waterford has no shortage of buildings, say, half of the size required, with room for extension. Also, PayPal is an internet company, by definition it could be anywhere. Would it be such a disaster if two buildings, side by side, were to be used instead of one large building?

Most companies are willing to actually build their offices though, especially if they are doing something with an industrial element, which may be easier to build from scratch. I can only imagine the whinging (think Railway sq.) from people were a large office building to be built from scratch with no tenant in mind. There would be no end of 'white elephant' complaints. The national media would more than likely be called in by certain 'concerned' locals and it would be become an example of "everything that is wrong with this country" (tm), etc.

What sites would you suggest? You've touched on the manufacturing - those companies will normally insist on building their own site for obvious reasons. We won't see many of those companies coming in over the next few years.

The PayPals etc. are the most likely large scale arrivals and want ready to go large office space, ideally in a part of town which provides easy access.

mike65

Anyone remember when the countryside was festooned with IDA Advance Factories that lay empty for years? Could do with a few of them designed for the 21st century maybe.

Psychedelic

What about the old Waterford Crystal visitors centre and factory? That be converted into modern offices, albeit with a lot of internal work, but if supported by City Council and Government it could be done. (Who actually owns all that now, WWRD?)

Also, the IDA have a load of empty green field sites out in Kilmeaden that are zoned for commerical and industrial use, if a company (or the Government) wanted to build premises from scratch.

hardybuck

Psychedelic wrote: »

What about the old Waterford Crystal visitors centre and factory? That be converted into modern offices, albeit with a lot of internal work, but if supported by City Council and Government it could be done. (Who actually owns all that now, WWRD?)

Also, the IDA have a load of empty green field sites out in Kilmeaden that are zoned for commerical and industrial use, if a company (or the Government) wanted to build premises from scratch.

Crystal site would cost a fortune to clean up or renovate.

fricatus

hardybuck wrote: »

Crystal site would cost a fortune to clean up or renovate.

There's a report this week in the Munster Express that WIT wants to buy it for campus expansion, IIRC.

fuzzy dunlop

hardybuck wrote: »

Crystal site would cost a fortune to clean up or renovate.

The showrooms wouldn't which I already suggested.

hardybuck

fuzzy dunlop wrote: »

The showrooms wouldn't which I already suggested.

So would you be looking to build a big wall around the showrooms to seperate it from the factory? Would be a fairly hard sell otherwise.

fuzzy dunlop

hardybuck wrote: »

So would you be looking to build a big wall around the showrooms to seperate it from the factory? Would be a fairly hard sell otherwise.

Building a wall is hardly an major Engineering Problem.Better still a fence and some trees.

robtri

fuzzy dunlop wrote: »

The showrooms wouldn't which I already suggested.

I would beg to differ, they would cost a fortune to convert to office space

fuzzy dunlop

robtri wrote: »

I would beg to differ, they would cost a fortune to convert to office space

Beg away but in reality it would ben no more than the Dundalk site.Probably even less. Most modern office space are open plan Bull Pens.The show rooms would be ideal

BlaasForRafa

robtri wrote: »

talk talk accomodated 800 at its peak in overlapping shifts and desks so small it was like a battery hen farm

Rubbish, there was plenty of space in the talktalk building with a full shift in, plus the desks weren't small, they were standard call centre pods.

Plus do you think that all 1000 paypal employees are going to be on at the same time? AOL/Talktalk was open for 16 hours a day, paypal will most likely be open for 24 hours.

fuzzy dunlop

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

Rubbish, there was plenty of space in the talktalk building with a full shift in, plus the desks weren't small, they were standard call centre pods.

Plus do you think that all 1000 paypal employees are going to be on at the same time? AOL/Talktalk was open for 16 hours a day, paypal will most likely be open for 24 hours.

Don't bother check this guys other posts. He probably sees the closure of talk talk as some sort of "result".Talk about sick.

robtri

fuzzy dunlop wrote: »

Don't bother check this guys other posts. He probably sees the closure of talk talk as some sort of "result".Talk about sick.

Hold on... i have made no comments about the closure of talk talk...
so please refrain from drawing assumptions.


the talk talk building is not a suitable location for a Multi national company coming in. it is an appalling building. structurally and astethically.

and as i said before no Multi national is going to look at the building and go.. wow thats the place we need to be... I would be very surprised if the IDA would even show it to someone like Paypal

robtri

fuzzy dunlop wrote: »

Beg away but in reality it would ben no more than the Dundalk site.Probably even less. Most modern office space are open plan Bull Pens.The show rooms would be ideal

yes most modern office are open spaced... but to convert the show rooms to usuable office space would be massive. It wi;ll cost you 10million to just buy the site before you do anything to it....

and the renovation costs would be massive.

robtri

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

Rubbish, there was plenty of space in the talktalk building with a full shift in, plus the desks weren't small, they were standard call centre pods.

Plus do you think that all 1000 paypal employees are going to be on at the same time? AOL/Talktalk was open for 16 hours a day, paypal will most likely be open for 24 hours.

they are small. the pod desk was maybe 6 inches either side of a keyboard.

i have no idea what paypal plans for opening hours and shift patterns are.. but seemingly you do.

hardybuck

Developments like these below are what Waterford is really competing against. If we build them, will they come?

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2012/0404/1224314333925.html

Max Powers

If Bolster had been given the go ahead to build his small tower office block quickly, we might have had it in place for paypal and others to move into. There is no vision about future expansion/development in this country.

CardBordWindow

Max Powers wrote: »

If Bolster had been given the go ahead to build his small tower office block quickly, we might have had it in place for paypal and others to move into.

.......or we might have yet another derelict office building.

hardybuck

CardBordWindow wrote: »

.......or we might have yet another derelict office building.

Are there many derelict office buildings, or a lot of bits and pieces around the place, or both?

While we're on topic, that site across from the city square car park - seems to be empty for as long as I can remember back. What is the story with that? Prime location.

O Riain

Max Powers wrote: »

If Bolster had been given the go ahead to build his small tower office block quickly, we might have had it in place for paypal and others to move into. There is no vision about future expansion/development in this country.

Whats the story on the Water Haven development anyway, they cleared the site for tall ships. Has the building actually begun yet?

Max Powers

CardBordWindow wrote: »

.......or we might have yet another derelict office building.

Yeah, it might be empty for a while, but it will be filled eventually, maybe someone like paypal would go into it. We'll never know now as it wasnt built. Lets look a bit further than 1/2 years down the line for a change. There aint a lot of derelict office buildings around, especially modern open spaces which these companies love.

The site accross from city square carpark was delayed by McCannt et al and by the time it was approved for undeground parking and office/retail space ground floor and up, money was not available.

merlante

CardBordWindow wrote: »

.......or we might have yet another derelict office building.

Don't see too many derelict office buildings. Besides, when people were asked where Paypal could set up in Waterford, there weren't too many suggestions forthcoming. Therefore, whatever is there, may not be up to it. Better to have at least *one* office building waiting for occupants, no?

Besides, in order for a building to become derelict, it must pass through a few other stages first, 1) construction, 2) being shiny, new and attractive, 3) being less shiny and less attractive, 4) decline toward dereliction. So, you know, maybe something positive might happen in the meantime!

The Empire State Building was built at the start of the great depression and wasn't fully occupied for years.

Nesta99

Just happened upon this thread and had a quick scan through so apologies if I repeat any previously made points.

There are obviously many factors considered when large FDI location is being decided. Some are stating the obvious.

Location in relation to travel infrastructure: Very obvious one and i agree to some extent that a country as small as ours this can be dismissed as minor consideration. In fact this is actually a major issue, 50mins added journey time from Dublin for example (doubled on a round trip) seems little enough but if can be shaved off it will. Consideration is given to potential commute time for employees. As, on average, people will commute for 1 hour to work or an estimated 80km that opens Dundalk to up to 2million people. Train and motorway links within 1 hour to Dublin and Belfast and as mentioned 3 international airports. More to do with manufacturing i know but you have a deep sea port at Greenore 10km north of Dundalk and Dundalk and Drogheda ports also.

Premises: Well this is bitter sweet for Dundalk as the location for PayPal will be based in the Xerox premises which as we all know was an epic fail as FDI for the North East region. Royal Bank of Scotland recently vacated the same premises leaving the necessary building infrastructure eg IT networking, phoneports etc. Massive car parking with a road network designed to create minimal congestion at peak times. All this keeps setup costs at a minimum.

Education: Dkit is a progressive IT (albeit a little behind WIT) and have agreed to implement all courses as requested by PayPal. You also have the pending Technology University status in conjunction with the Border Midlands West region IT's (Sligo, Letterkenny, maybe Athlone). The pooling of such resources and subsequent graduates has to impress. There is also an alternative proposal where DkITmay become a campus of DCU; all of this would be in a 'tender' process. Ok in real terms im sure holes can be poked in this but when marketing a region and you can say 'have a look at our University' it is likely carry more weight than 'our Inst of Tech'. In addition Colleges of Higher Education in Monaghan, Cavan, Drogheda, Navan and possibly Newry are earmarked in this DkIT redesignation, genuinely servicing a region rather than a town.

Dundalk has significantly higher unemployment than the national average aand as such was always likely to be targeted for FDI. Social and economic deprivation both as a result of the troubles and proximity to the Border has meant that the region was and is targeted for investment essentially playing 30 years of catch up with many other areas of the country. Co-operation with our Northern Irish counterparts and the benefits that are brought north of the border will appeal to the Americans in particular not to mention the additional political capital in lobbying for the area.

A lot has been bandied about about bi-lingual dimensions of the available jobs, now i havent seen any demographic breakdown in this regard in either Waterford or Dundalk so as such making comparisons is pure conjecture.

You can also consider the calibre of people involved in respective bids and other stakeholders, maybe they just simple put up a better sale pitch for Dundalk than others. Limerick never believed that they were really in contention but obtaining this job investment over Berlin is amaxing really.

Population is decieving in Dundalk to an extent, the urban population is about 32000, include suburbs like Blackrock and Faughart among others and add another 20-25k(having not seen the most recent census). I know this is not a main point and while not a city not hugely different in size from Waterford.

I love visiting Waterford, and as aesthetics go Waterford ticks all boxes as it does for much of the case as was presented for the Dundalk location.

To sum up i suppose the main differences were the suitability of the premises and the quality of the bid put together by Dundalk reps.

I am a Dundalk man who has moved abroad for work myself by the way:o

Apols for the lenghty post...

merlante

Nesta99 wrote: »

Just happened upon this thread and had a quick scan through so apologies if I repeat any previously made points.

There are obviously many factors considered when large FDI location is being decided. Some are stating the obvious.

Location in relation to travel infrastructure: Very obvious one and i agree to some extent that a country as small as ours this can be dismissed as minor consideration. In fact this is actually a major issue, 50mins added journey time from Dublin for example (doubled on a round trip) seems little enough but if can be shaved off it will. Consideration is given to potential commute time for employees. As, on average, people will commute for 1 hour to work or an estimated 80km that opens Dundalk to up to 2million people. Train and motorway links within 1 hour to Dublin and Belfast and as mentioned 3 international airports. More to do with manufacturing i know but you have a deep sea port at Greenore 10km north of Dundalk and Dundalk and Drogheda ports also.

Premises: Well this is bitter sweet for Dundalk as the location for PayPal will be based in the Xerox premises which as we all know was an epic fail as FDI for the North East region. Royal Bank of Scotland recently vacated the same premises leaving the necessary building infrastructure eg IT networking, phoneports etc. Massive car parking with a road network designed to create minimal congestion at peak times. All this keeps setup costs at a minimum.

Education: Dkit is a progressive IT (albeit a little behind WIT) and have agreed to implement all courses as requested by PayPal. You also have the pending Technology University status in conjunction with the Border Midlands West region IT's (Sligo, Letterkenny, maybe Athlone). The pooling of such resources and subsequent graduates has to impress. There is also an alternative proposal where DkITmay become a campus of DCU; all of this would be in a 'tender' process. Ok in real terms im sure holes can be poked in this but when marketing a region and you can say 'have a look at our University' it is likely carry more weight than 'our Inst of Tech'. In addition Colleges of Higher Education in Monaghan, Cavan, Drogheda, Navan and possibly Newry are earmarked in this DkIT redesignation, genuinely servicing a region rather than a town.

Dundalk has significantly higher unemployment than the national average aand as such was always likely to be targeted for FDI. Social and economic deprivation both as a result of the troubles and proximity to the Border has meant that the region was and is targeted for investment essentially playing 30 years of catch up with many other areas of the country. Co-operation with our Northern Irish counterparts and the benefits that are brought north of the border will appeal to the Americans in particular not to mention the additional political capital in lobbying for the area.

A lot has been bandied about about bi-lingual dimensions of the available jobs, now i havent seen any demographic breakdown in this regard in either Waterford or Dundalk so as such making comparisons is pure conjecture.

You can also consider the calibre of people involved in respective bids and other stakeholders, maybe they just simple put up a better sale pitch for Dundalk than others. Limerick never believed that they were really in contention but obtaining this job investment over Berlin is amaxing really.

Population is decieving in Dundalk to an extent, the urban population is about 32000, include suburbs like Blackrock and Faughart among others and add another 20-25k(having not seen the most recent census). I know this is not a main point and while not a city not hugely different in size from Waterford.

I love visiting Waterford, and as aesthetics go Waterford ticks all boxes as it does for much of the case as was presented for the Dundalk location.

To sum up i suppose the main differences were the suitability of the premises and the quality of the bid put together by Dundalk reps.

I am a Dundalk man who has moved abroad for work myself by the way:o

Apols for the lenghty post...

Yeah, we kind of already debated half of those points. Realistically though, there is nothing all that particularly special about either Dundalk, Waterford or anywhere else, as FDI does seem to get around, even to strange places that would appear to have almost no natural advantages. At least *some* of us are more interested in the political dimension, in how attitudes are formed towards and against certain locations within the IDA and other agencies and how the government of the day can sway decisions from one location to another through various incentives. From this standpoint, unless a company explicitly insists on a particular location, the selection of a location can have a significant political dimension.

Well done to Dundalk for catching the big game, boohoo for Waterford who must continue to fend for itself, etc.

Since I'm a stickler populations... Regarding population, Dundalk was 35,085 incl. suburbs in 2006 and, provided its growth continued, would be around 37,800 in 2011. Waterford is 51,519 incl. suburbs in 2011 with Tramore, effectively a dormitory town of 10,000 or so, a few miles out the road.

Nesta99

In fear of a 'my population is bigger than yours' discussion:p

"Dundalk Town has a population of 35,085 (2006 Census, CSO) which is estimated to grow to 60,000 by 2020. Within a 30 mile radius, the catchment area grows to 482,000 and this increases to in excess of 3 million within a 50 mile radius".
http://www.dundalk.ie/area-profile.php


Dundalks CSA is about 56000 of which about 31000 is within 10sq urban miles. 12-13sq miles pushes poulation above the 50k mark as per 2011 census which ia too annoying to quote from. So quite high density. That excludes places like Dromiskin etc (our Tramores).

As for the'political dimension' of locating business of course it is political! I at least implied that by saying that some lobbiests are better than others, some politicians are better too, as it is likely that some proposals are better than others regardless of an areas potential or not. The keystone to any Dundalk project is its unique access to 2/3's of the islands population, proximity to the border, a growing asset in the unique oppertunities it gives post peace process. A reasonable argument against constant focus on the major cities like Dublin, Belfast, Cork, and Galway/Limerick. (Waterford left out of this list purely as a wind up;))

You say that Waterford fends for itself? Sounds a tad seige mentality. Does Dundalk not do so too and if not why not. If you spend the best part of half a centuary being kicked about in the media as Dundalk was (El Paso etc) well you learn to fend for yourself and promote your strong points. Maybe complacency exists the sunny south east? Indeed if this area, Cooley, in particular got as much attention from the tourist board et al, as much as the south east for example, we would be even better off again. Swings and roundabouts to some extent.

PS Dundalk is special allright - what that means will depend on whether you are talking to a Dundalk person or a Drogheda person lol though the feeling is mutual ;p

merlante

Nesta99 wrote: »

In fear of a 'my population is bigger than yours' discussion:p

"Dundalk Town has a population of 35,085 (2006 Census, CSO) which is estimated to grow to 60,000 by 2020. Within a 30 mile radius, the catchment area grows to 482,000 and this increases to in excess of 3 million within a 50 mile radius".
http://www.dundalk.ie/area-profile.php


Dundalks CSA is about 56000 of which about 31000 is within 10sq urban miles. 12-13sq miles pushes poulation above the 50k mark as per 2011 census which ia too annoying to quote from. So quite high density. That excludes places like Dromiskin etc (our Tramores).

As for the'political dimension' of locating business of course it is political! I at least implied that by saying that some lobbiests are better than others, some politicians are better too, as it is likely that some proposals are better than others regardless of an areas potential or not. The keystone to any Dundalk project is its unique access to 2/3's of the islands population, proximity to the border, a growing asset in the unique oppertunities it gives post peace process. A reasonable argument against constant focus on the major cities like Dublin, Belfast, Cork, and Galway/Limerick. (Waterford left out of this list purely as a wind up;))

You say that Waterford fends for itself? Sounds a tad seige mentality. Does Dundalk not do so too and if not why not. If you spend the best part of half a centuary being kicked about in the media as Dundalk was (El Paso etc) well you learn to fend for yourself and promote your strong points. Maybe complacency exists the sunny south east? Indeed if this area, Cooley, in particular got as much attention from the tourist board et al, as much as the south east for example, we would be even better off again. Swings and roundabouts to some extent.

PS Dundalk is special allright - what that means will depend on whether you are talking to a Dundalk person or a Drogheda person lol though the feeling is mutual ;p

Look it's just feckin' smaller all right. Compare apples with apples and it's smaller. :P

I think this business of 2/3's of the population is within X hours/mins of my town argument is not very strong and a bit disingenuous. I mean, using the population of Dublin and Belfast as a justification for the development of Dundalk is a stretch. Waterford could do more or less the same with Dublin, Cork and Limerick, which are all within 2hrs of the city (I know it's less for Dundalk). What we can take from these sort of arguments, though, is that if you're on the motorway network then you are not really far from other urban areas and airports. Ireland should be marketed more like a city-state like Singapore, where we have a Dundalk campus and a Waterford campus and it doesn't really matter where FDI go, and the government has a freer hand in planning development. This would speed up the development of clusters, etc.

Well, by 'fend for itself' I mean that we in Waterford are (or example) creating these swell call centre jobs from the ashes of TalkTalk and owing to the ambitions of a few local slave labour-masters. The sort of 'we're so desperate we'll work for less than the Chinese' kind of jobs. You could call that a siege mentality, but it's a bit more real than that. Dundalk would be in the same category, but then -- at least this time around -- it got Paypal, which is mana from the heavens, effectively, since it is the sort of enterprise that realistically is not going to emerge organically in the locality and can support other employment.

fuzzy dunlop

fricatus wrote: »

From the Indo today:



She mentions language skills, but I'm sure I won't insult the good people of Dundalk when I make the assumption that they're not necessarily any better or worse at languages than people in Waterford, or indeed Limerick, which was in competition with Dundalk for the investment.

I'd say a bigger factor was the large buildings (the old Dell plant being empty was why Limerick was also considered), and from the report above, the proximity to Dublin was a major consideration.

This is worrying; whereas heretofore we in Waterford were being told "you need to improve access to Dublin" in order to get FDI, the new motorways have now meant that locations like Dundalk and Kilkenny are almost commutable from Dublin, and now the goalposts are shifted. We can't move Waterford any closer to Dublin, so if that's an advantage in such matters, then we're at a permanent loss.

Good luck to Dundalk by the way. It's really nice and heartening to see investment going to an area that has been genuinely economically disadvantaged for many years. Too often we see IDA companies crowding into Dublin, Cork and (inexplicably) Galway - all three of which places are doing comparatively well. It will be a big shot in the arm for Dundalk and I wish them well. I just hope the IDA are putting in a similarly big effort for the two cities that have suffered the most from job losses in the past 5 years - Limerick and Waterford.

It looks like the the language dividend that brought pay pal to Dundalk was bollix after all.Like we needed to be told.

Max Powers

Fuzzy,
Who wrote that piece in indo, link leads me to old article

fuzzy dunlop

Max Powers wrote: »

Fuzzy,
Who wrote that piece in indo, link leads me to old article

Apologies must have forgot to post the link.

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/country-needs-to-get-past-hiring-overseas-staff-warns-paypal-chief-3272791.html

Sully

If they came to Waterford our unemployment rate would still be poor so.