Limerick improvement projects

Cookiemunster

The footpath and one lane of the road on Henry St. outside the Hanging Gardens are now closed and hoarding is being erected.

Poxyshamrock

Cookiemunster wrote: »

The footpath and one lane of the road on Henry St. outside the Hanging Gardens are now closed and hoarding is being erected.

Same as it was before so! Great to see some activity!

Townie_P

pigtown wrote: »

Innovate Limerick have pretty much established an entirely new industry in Limerick by setting up Troy studios and they are working with the colleges to develop skills. This project is ensuring that the jobs go to local people who can study and have a good career in Limerick.

They are also responsible for the Rathkeale Enterprise Centre which has risen from the ashes of a factory that closed there not too long ago, and now employs more people than it did before the closure.

They also run the LEDP in Raheen, developing a startup culture and other things that I'm not sure about.

They are one of the better council departments.

Innovate Limerick does not run the LEDP. The LEDP has been in existence for years, they bought the Krups factory a year after it closed in the late nineties. Innovate Limerick has only recently been set up by the council to drive 2030 projects. The LEDP has a representative on the Innovate Limerick board and Innovate have their city office in the LEDP building in Roxboro, but that's the extent of the relationship.

pigtown

Townie_P wrote: »

Innovate Limerick does not run the LEDP. The LEDP has been in existence for years, they bought the Krups factory a year after it closed in the late nineties. Innovate Limerick has only recently been set up by the council to drive 2030 projects. The LEDP has a representative on the Innovate Limerick board and Innovate have their city office in the LEDP building in Roxboro, but that's the extent of the relationship.

Sorry, misinterpreted this from the website

Innovation Hub Roxboro

The Innovation Hub at LEDP Roxboro that will extend to 35,000sq ft and the project will be completed by March 2016. On completion, the hub will offer potential tenants the biggest modern open plan office footprint available in Limerick at present and is attracting interest from both indigenous and FDI projects. The project is being managed by LEDP in conjunction with Innovate Limerick and is co funded by Limerick Regeneration and Enterprise Ireland. When full it is anticipated that this project should facilitate the creation of close to 150 direct jobs and an additional 75 jobs will be created in the ten associated Community Enterprise Centres located right around the City and County.

wigsa100

I know it's slightly off topic guys but I've been wondering about a a certain piece of property on Henry St. It's pretty much across the way from the Limerick Post offices, yellow buildings with green doors. Are they townhouses or apartments or commercial or what? They look fantastic.

steveon

wigsa100 wrote: »

I know it's slightly off topic guys but I've been wondering about a a certain piece of property on Henry St. It's pretty much across the way from the Limerick Post offices, yellow buildings with green doors. Are they townhouses or apartments or commercial or what? They look fantastic.

it's a protected structure all small apartments I think the council own it but could be wrong but beautiful gardens and building from outside wouldn't fancy the apartment as I said very small but ideal for older people living on their own.

wigsa100

steveon wrote: »

it's a protected structure all small apartments I think the council own it but could be wrong but beautiful gardens and building from outside wouldn't fancy the apartment as I said very small but ideal for older people living on their own.

Thanks for that. Ugh, another let down so. I thought they might have been lovely townhouses or at least big apartments or something. Shame really, they'd be a prime place to get people settling in the city. As you say, lovely gardens and buildings.

James Bond Junior

I was told they were like a sheltered living area for older people. How much truth is in that I don't know.

dave 27

I think your thinking of Richmond terrace, their retirement apartments, so for elderly people who can still look after themselves but is looked after by a nurse 24/7 in case of an emergency

My gran used to live there and I'm close with a person working there

source

Was in town earlier on Catherine St, the majority of the block between Cecil St and Glentworth St either have for sale agreed/sold signs on them, or have renovation work going on. It's great to see, hopefully they'll be done right.

dave 27

The Georgian buildings actually look really well once refurbished or power hosed. If you see the likes of the shelbourne in Dublin and other "new" buildings looks really well, if the centre of limerick was refurbished in and around the same time block by block it would actually look stunning

phog

wigsa100 wrote: »

I know it's slightly off topic guys but I've been wondering about a a certain piece of property on Henry St. It's pretty much across the way from the Limerick Post offices, yellow buildings with green doors. Are they townhouses or apartments or commercial or what? They look fantastic.

That's Richmond Terrace, I think it's sheltered homes for the elderly owned/ran by the Church of Ireland.

Treepole

source wrote: »

Was in town earlier on Catherine St, the majority of the block between Cecil St and Glentworth St either have for sale agreed/sold signs on them, or have renovation work going on. It's great to see, hopefully they'll be done right.

Depends on the tenants to that go in there afterwards. The council are offering over market rent at the moment so the majority of these will just be let back to the council once renovated and the cycle will begin again.

source

Treepole wrote: »

Depends on the tenants to that go in there afterwards. The council are offering over market rent at the moment so the majority of these will just be let back to the council once renovated and the cycle will begin again.

That is my fear, but hopefully they'll be done right, and not just rented back to the council or hse

zulutango

Catherine Street will attract the worst of tenants so long as the street is as unappealing as it is. It's potentially one of the most beautiful streets in Ireland, but right now it's one of the ugliest. With the right approach by Limerick City and County Council it can be fixed, and it wouldn't cost a fortune either.

How to go about it? Get rid of the overhead power lines, remove the on-street parking, restrict the traffic flows on it, widen the footpaths, landscape, provide street art and street furniture and suitable lighting. Generally, make it a 'liveable' street, i.e. a street where people will want to live. If the council did that, then people will be falling over themselves to rent buildings and apartments along it, the rents will go up, and we'll get a better kind of tenant there. As I said before, it's not rocket science and it's proven to work in decaying cities all over the world.

dave 27

It would be hard to make it a "livable" street without parking tho, maybe simply have parking going out from the footpath as opposed to parallel to it like we see in the movies?!

Poxyshamrock

Hopefully with Canteen opening on Catherine Street, it will be bring a bit of life to the area.

Poxyshamrock

Hopefully with Canteen opening on Catherine Street, it will be bring a bit of life to the area.

johnnyryan89

zulutango wrote: »

Catherine Street will attract the worst of tenants so long as the street is as unappealing as it is. It's potentially one of the most beautiful streets in Ireland, but right now it's one of the ugliest. With the right approach by Limerick City and County Council it can be fixed, and it wouldn't cost a fortune either.

How to go about it? Get rid of the overhead power lines, remove the on-street parking, restrict the traffic flows on it, widen the footpaths, landscape, provide street art and street furniture and suitable lighting. Generally, make it a 'liveable' street, i.e. a street where people will want to live. If the council did that, then people will be falling over themselves to rent buildings and apartments along it, the rents will go up, and we'll get a better kind of tenant there. As I said before, it's not rocket science and it's proven to work in decaying cities all over the world.

Could maybe work if you took it from the junction of Roche's St/Catherine St and the junction of Glenthworth St/Catherine St and included Cecil St which would give you a nice little area to make livable because Cecil St badly needs a makeover even more so than Catherine St.

The block where Tom Collins pub is basically one long taxi rank which never seems to be that busy anyway and a lot of the buildings on that part of the street are in bad nick and with the other block it's just a glorified car park for people using the dole office.

wigsa100

zulutango wrote: »

Catherine Street will attract the worst of tenants so long as the street is as unappealing as it is. It's potentially one of the most beautiful streets in Ireland, but right now it's one of the ugliest. With the right approach by Limerick City and County Council it can be fixed, and it wouldn't cost a fortune either.

How to go about it? Get rid of the overhead power lines, remove the on-street parking, restrict the traffic flows on it, widen the footpaths, landscape, provide street art and street furniture and suitable lighting. Generally, make it a 'liveable' street, i.e. a street where people will want to live. If the council did that, then people will be falling over themselves to rent buildings and apartments along it, the rents will go up, and we'll get a better kind of tenant there. As I said before, it's not rocket science and it's proven to work in decaying cities all over the world.

A great post. How much above the going rate are the council paying landlords? I didn't even know that was a thing.

I was looking around at apartments the other day and there was one in a place called The Drapery that looked brilliant, the ad is gone now but I think it said there were only 5 apartments in the unit. It was newly renovated, hopefully a sign of things to come.

Rent was a bit steep at 1,000 for a two bed though.

pigtown

A planning application has been submitted for work on the old ESB building and the Bishop's Palace on Henry Street to include;

Demolition of ESB building and various outbuildings on the site.
Conversion of Bishop's Palace to 7 apartments.
Conversion of surface carpark to public plaza (front of Bishop's Palace)
Conversion of coach house to cafe/restaurant (facing the new plaza)
Construction of new 15 story office building fronting Bishop's Quay and Lower Cecil Street, to include 2 cafes and over 14,000sq/m of space.
Construction of new 7 story apartment building fronting Bishop's Quay with 35 apartments.

All sounds exciting to me, I hope it's not just a glass tower though.

wigsa100

Hopefully they're nice apartments and not the ghettoey ****holes in most buildings of that calibre.

Mc Love

pigtown wrote: »

A planning application has been submitted for work on the old ESB building and the Bishop's Palace on Henry Street to include;

Demolition of ESB building and various outbuildings on the site.
Conversion of Bishop's Palace to 7 apartments.
Conversion of surface carpark to public plaza (front of Bishop's Palace)
Conversion of coach house to cafe/restaurant (facing the new plaza)
Construction of new 15 story office building fronting Bishop's Quay and Lower Cecil Street, to include 2 cafes and over 14,000sq/m of space.
Construction of new 7 story apartment building fronting Bishop's Quay with 35 apartments.

All sounds exciting to me, I hope it's not just a glass tower though.

There goes my dream of winning the lotto and moving into the Bishops Palace

zulutango

pigtown wrote: »

A planning application has been submitted for work on the old ESB building and the Bishop's Palace on Henry Street to include;

Demolition of ESB building and various outbuildings on the site.
Conversion of Bishop's Palace to 7 apartments.
Conversion of surface carpark to public plaza (front of Bishop's Palace)
Conversion of coach house to cafe/restaurant (facing the new plaza)
Construction of new 15 story office building fronting Bishop's Quay and Lower Cecil Street, to include 2 cafes and over 14,000sq/m of space.
Construction of new 7 story apartment building fronting Bishop's Quay with 35 apartments.

All sounds exciting to me, I hope it's not just a glass tower though.

On the face of it, that is ****ing fantastic!

The only thing that remains to be seen is what standard they intend to build to. We need to aim for far better than Riverpoint if we're to attract good employers and residents to a location like this.

Mc Love

Is riverpoint not a good build? Certainly looks that way looking from the outside

Mc Love

Adare Manor posted this on twitter!

pigtown

Wow it's really big isn't it. I'm looking forward to the Pro-Am there in 2020, I wonder will the new bypass be open by then?

zulutango

Mc Love wrote: »

Is riverpoint not a good build? Certainly looks that way looking from the outside

It's nice and shiny but that hides the underlying design issues. I have no reason to think the construction is bad, but the design is not great. The apartments are very poky, dark and the finishes are cheap. Most are quite small and they really are not built for families or professionals. They wouldn't come close to the standard of The Strand, across the river, for example. The common areas are remarkably basic too. Again, the Strand or the Carlton are streets ahead.

The offices are ok, but if we're aiming to attract serious companies to the city centre, we'll need places of the standard of some of the newer developments in Dublin. The likes of "One Albert Quay" in Cork is a great example of the standard that we should be aiming for in Limerick. It's mind-blowingly modern, but if we don't build office developments like this, then we are going to continue to play second fiddle.

Cityslicker1

zulutango wrote: »

It's nice and shiny but that hides the underlying design issues. I have no reason to think the construction is bad, but the design is not great. The apartments are very poky, dark and the finishes are cheap. Most are quite small and they really are not built for families or professionals. They wouldn't come close to the standard of The Strand, across the river, for example. The common areas are remarkably basic too. Again, the Strand or the Carlton are streets ahead.

The offices are ok, but if we're aiming to attract serious companies to the city centre, we'll need places of the standard of some of the newer developments in Dublin. The likes of "One Albert Quay" in Cork is a great example of the standard that we should be aiming for in Limerick. It's mind-blowingly modern, but if we don't build office developments like this, then we are going to continue to play second fiddle.

Would be great if they could light up Riverpoint at night - even lights around the border to show it's there.

marno21

pigtown wrote: »

Wow it's really big isn't it. I'm looking forward to the Pro-Am there in 2020, I wonder will the new bypass be open by then?

No. The bypass should be ready to start construction in early 2019.

However, there are 3/4 projects the government have promises funding for that are ready to go right now (Dunkettle interchange, N4/N5 dual carraigeways, Macroom bypass), that the government have said won't start until 2019-2021.

So unless the government collapses and a government with brain cells comes in there will be no bypass for the Pro Am.