Limerick improvement projects

mdmix

People resist to change everywhere and anywhere, this isint new and it isint an Irish issue. If the change is handled right and communicated effectively then people generally embrace it. Cork city council must take the blame for the poor introduction of the car ban. I don’t follow cork media but do read the examiner, only a few fleeting mentions in the run up to it. The city council should have been shouting from roof tops about it. A street festival should have been planned to show the potential of pedestrianisation. Retailers should have been brought in on it so they could have offered incentives to keep people coming into town. Also, why was this done in April? would it not have made more sense to do this in the summer when there is naturally less road traffic and when students and families would be able to use the street? If the rollout was better, then cork city council would not be asking the public for time to bed in the changes.

Hopefully Limerick can learn from corks failure, although, any pedestrianisation of O’Connell st would be doomed to failure. We are a car dependent city and public transport is woefully inadequate. Unless the population of limerick city center increases (not happening any time soon), or we provide a way for people in the suburbs to into the city, people will just avoid the hassle of going to town and the streets will be empty(er)

mart 23

Has the work on the Clarion suites on the Ennis Road started yet and any further news about the Bishops Quay project since reading here about a picker working on the site. Thanks for any replies.

J Mysterio

RE: Patrick Street in Cork, i find these new 'rules' utterly daft. Either close the route to Traffic altogether, or leave it be.

If there was some purpose - like to pedestrianise the whole thing, I might get it. That would be a really big, wide pedestrian zone though, and would probably look quite plain and boring, you'd need some statues, seating areas or park space thrown in. There's also not enough cafes or pubs on that stretch, which woulf suit that kind of space better. Patrick St. is for retail.

3pm - 6:30 is just totally bizarre and arbitrary though. Surely town is busiest around 1pm anyway? What sense do these times make?

I also echo what previous posters have said, Patrick St is something of a through road, to get elsewhere. It's not a destination, but part of the journey. If you actually wanted to drive somewhere there, you wouldnt find a place as it's taxi ranks or loading bays or something else.

Cork city centre is actually not great for on street parking in general. Limerick is much handier for that. When in Cork, I always used the multistory car parks.

Whats strange is that Patrick St just doesnt have the volume of busses or taxis going through here for this to make sense. During the 3pm - 6:30, its the odd bus going by, and not much else. An ill conceived plan, badly carried out.

marno21

I haven't posted on this issue in the Cork forum yet but I find this resistance to the Patrick Street traffic ban bizarre.

Anytime I have driven down Patrick Street during the ban hours I have travelled down Patrick Street at slower than walking pace and wondered why I bothered at all.

There is no benefit to having a street clogged with 3km/h cars when it could be put to much better use.

Of course these issues do raise the problem of core city streets being used as thoroughfares and the need for functional orbital routes but that's a debate for another day

dominatinMC

Whilst wandering around the Milk Market yesterday morning, I thought to myself that it is surely one of the greatest initiatives/improvement projects in Limerick in a long time. The fine weather helps a lot, clearly, but the place was packed yesterday, as it is most Saturdays when I go there. Local people (and some tourists too) buying local produce, and supporting the local economy. A slice of utopia in Limerick! The benefits of this for the wider, city center are obvious too, with the increased footfall from the market generating much-needed revenue for shops around the city-center.

Poxyshamrock

dominatinMC wrote: »

Whilst wandering around the Milk Market yesterday morning, I thought to myself that it is surely one of the greatest initiatives/improvement projects in Limerick in a long time. The fine weather helps a lot, clearly, but the place was packed yesterday, as it is most Saturdays when I go there. Local people (and some tourists too) buying local produce, and supporting the local economy. A slice of utopia in Limerick! The benefits of this for the wider, city center are obvious too, with the increased footfall from the market generating much-needed revenue for shops around the city-center.

This is a bit of a problem though. So many people come into go to the market and do just that. We need to be able to attract more people up the town after. Unfortunately, at the moment there isn't much to do that.

dave 27

Hopefully with the development of the opera center soon it may open up the area more and have a bigger pull

johnnyryan89

https://www.limerick.ie/council/newsroom/news/limerick-city-and-county-council-rolls-out-free-high-speed-wi-fi-city-centre

Only noticed this yesterday but kudos to the council. Hopefully with the free wifi down by the river they plan on using the boardwalk more for riverfest and block off all traffic on that road for the weekend.

phog

johnnyryan89 wrote: »

https://www.limerick.ie/council/newsroom/news/limerick-city-and-county-council-rolls-out-free-high-speed-wi-fi-city-centre

Only noticed this yesterday but kudos to the council. Hopefully with the free wifi down by the river they plan on using the boardwalk more for riverfest and block off all traffic on that road for the weekend.

I would imagine Riverfest would have to subsidise the multistorey car park for loss of income if you blocked off all traffic for the festival.

zulutango

phog wrote:

I would imagine Riverfest would have to subsidise the multistorey car park for loss of income if you blocked off all traffic for the festival.

Under what rules?

Reputable Rog

zulutango wrote: »

Under what rules?

Exactly, what rules?

Poxyshamrock

They could just put up the bollards between Lower Cecil Street and Lower Shannon Street. It would be a start.

dominatinMC

The Limerick Leader are reporting this morning that 300 jobs have been confirmed for the Gardens International site, with an aircraft leasing firm taking the top 3 floors.

Great stuff all round

tototoe

dominatinMC wrote: »

The Limerick Leader are reporting this morning that 300 jobs have been confirmed for the Gardens International site, with an aircraft leasing firm taking the top 3 floors.

Great stuff all round

Very good news!

zulutango

That is indeed great news. It just goes to show the importance of building high quality buildings. The Hanging Gardens is LEED gold standard and I've no doubt if it wasn't then these jobs would be less likely to come here.

bigpink

Some city centre apartments next if we are to keep the jobs coming

Mc Love

dominatinMC wrote: »

The Limerick Leader are reporting this morning that 300 jobs have been confirmed for the Gardens International site, with an aircraft leasing firm taking the top 3 floors.

Great stuff all round

NAC work directly across from the Gardens at the moment. Some jump from 60 to 300 people and taking the 3 floors

Thats two companies now on Henry St that I know of that have bigger offices here than their HQ

mdmix

Great news and a vote of confidence for the city center. Hopefully this might drive on other projects like bishops place

mdmix

mart 23 wrote: »

Has the work on the Clarion suites on the Ennis Road started yet and any further news about the Bishops Quay project since reading here about a picker working on the site. Thanks for any replies.

Clarion suites site has been put up for sale. Planning permission was only sought to increase its value. Any future developer may decide to reopen as a hotel

zulutango

mdmix wrote: »

Clarion suites site has been put up for sale. Planning permission was only sought to increase its value.

Would be great if it was demolished and turned into a park. That is highly unlikely to happen unfortunately. Not the end of the world if it's developed for residential use, imo.

mdmix

zulutango wrote: »

Would be great if it was demolished and turned into a park. That is highly unlikely to happen unfortunately. Not the end of the world if it's developed for residential use, imo.

I would love to see more parks in limerick but I think there are enough in that area between shelbourne, westfields and caherdavin park. It would be fantastic to have a large park within 45 min walk of the city. Something at least the size of mungret or larger. The parks in and around the city are nice but not big enough to go for a run or cycle.

Apartments would be great as they are badly needed. Any hotel would just promote more car use as it’s still 30 mins walk to the city with only a poor bus service. Probably only appeal to tourists using limerick as a central point in the mid west.

iguana

mdmix wrote: »

I would love to see more parks in limerick but I think there are enough in that area between shelbourne, westfields and caherdavin park. It would be fantastic to have a large park within 45 min walk of the city. Something at least the size of mungret or larger. The parks in and around the city are nice but not big enough to go for a run or cycle.

The Parkway Valley site could make an utterly amazing park. It's only a 20-25 minute walk from the city centre and mostly a short pleasant cycle from town via the canal then through Rhebogue (or potentially the park could be accessed from the Shannon if the whole Groody Valley area was utilised for the park). It's a huge bank of still mostly unused land close to town but it's a river valley and really not suitable for building on because either buildings built on it would flood or their flood defences will increase the flood risk downriver.

There could be playgrounds, picnic areas, cafes and other utilities located on the higher ground, connected with pathways so those parts of the park are useable all year round. And the lower down areas, especially around the Groody could be heavily planted with trees that provide significant flood drainage alleviating flood risk to the entire city. Then lots of high pollutant absorbing trees like Ash all around the boundaries to counteract emissions from the busy roads all around the area. I lived in London for years, a city that despite it's high population density is 30% public parkland, and huge parks like that are walking distance from nearly every neighbourhood. (With small parks like Clare St, Shelbourne Rd, etc all over the place). It's crazy that a city the size of ours with a population as low as ours has so few park options.

pigtown

I've thought a Groody Valley Park would be an ideal use of that floodland for a while now, with the possibility of repurposing the derelict structure to some sort of vertical garden or other tourist attraction. It would cost an awful lot of money though and I can't see where it would come from.

tweek84

bigpink wrote: »

Some city centre apartments next if we are to keep the jobs coming

I know its not in the city center but isn't the land where John Maloneys garage (Honda) and academy awards used to be, ear market for housing?

Lidl or Aldi (i can't remember which one is there) have apparently bought the chadwicks building and are going to revamp it and knock their existing building.

tweek84

Anyone have any updates on the €200m data centre that was supposed go ahead in Limerick?

Vanquished

pigtown wrote: »

I've thought a Groody Valley Park would be an ideal use of that floodland for a while now, with the possibility of repurposing the derelict structure to some sort of vertical garden or other tourist attraction. It would cost an awful lot of money though and I can't see where it would come from.

That whole Groody green wedge is a wasteland at the moment. It's being completely ignored. The only action it sees is the odd circus or an occasional visit of wild horses frolicking around inside there. A portion of land by the Garryglass roundabout has been sold but the rest remains untouched. With a bit of imagination it could definitely be turned in to a great urban park with walking trails, bike tracks, sports pitches etc. It would be particularly useful considering the ever growing population of Castletroy/Annacotty. There is a mention of potential future use in the local area plan I believe but as ever it's a distant dream.

dashoonage

I'm sure the developer who was looking to build there but was stopped by the "city center group for stopping the auld building hai there now lads" will be delighted to assist limerick city in selling to to them at a greatly inflated rate to recoup the losses he has made.

Jose Maria

I heard there is planning for a housing estate around the Bloodmill road towards the Groody Valley

peckerhead

tweek84 wrote: »

I know its not in the city center but isn't the land where John Maloneys garage (Honda) and academy awards used to be, ear market for housing?

Lidl or Aldi (i can't remember which one is there) have apparently bought the chadwicks building and are going to revamp it and knock their existing building.

Lot of activity in there today; they seemed to be levelling the whole site to the rear of Lidl/Chadwicks and the old John Moloney garage. About time.

James Bond Junior

peckerhead wrote: »

Lot of activity in there today; they seemed to be levelling the whole site to the rear of Lidl/Chadwicks and the old John Moloney garage. About time.

Left for work at 8.10 and it was intact. Arrived home at 18.10 and it is little more than a shell.