New Street Gardens

O Riain

Can't believe I didn't hear anything about this but the plans look really nice. Any idea when it's set to finish?

Here are the plans:
https://scontent-a-lhr.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/t31.0-8/p843x403/1780094_1408859116034033_423843438_o.jpg

Facebook Page:
https://www.facebook.com/newstreetgardens

Hoffmans

O Riain wrote: »

Can't believe I didn't hear anything about this but the plans look really nice. Any idea when it's set to finish?

Here are the plans:
https://scontent-a-lhr.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/t31.0-8/p843x403/1780094_1408859116034033_423843438_o.jpg

Facebook Page:
https://www.facebook.com/newstreetgardens

Fair play to the volunteers taking on this project it will be a good amenity for the inner city...

The question is why were the half decently built houses there not refurbished and given to local tenants for housing....rather than been left for junkies and cockroaches to infest...

BBM77

Hoffmans wrote: »

The question is why were the half decently built houses there not refurbished and given to local tenants for housing....rather than been left for junkies and cockroaches to infest...

Because the city centre is in dire need of modern retail space and the Newgate site is the best site to fix this problem and create jobs. So that site has to be kept vacant to achieve long term gain instead of short sighted quick fixes.

Shane07

The city centre is failing because of the poor retail offering as everyone knows to well.This site is a ready to go site now for the new shopping centre,them houses should have never had been built in New Street,they were suburban houses that looked out of place to me.While I welcome the garden development I just hope that when the planning process for the new centre starts they wont start objecting and holding it up as Waterford needs that retail offering now.

fricatus

Shane07 wrote: »

them houses should have never had been built in New Street,they were suburban houses that looked out of place to me.

In fairness, those houses were built long before the various properties there were assembled into one site suitable for a shopping centre.

Shane07 wrote: »

I just hope that when the planning process for the new centre starts they wont start objecting and holding it up as Waterford needs that retail offering now.

If that clown Brendan McCann hadn't been objecting to everything that anyone was trying to build in the city centre, it might have got built and been opened around the same time as McDonagh Junction in KK. While that shopping centre was scarily empty for a long time, it's now taken off, and I have no doubt the same would have happened in Waterford, and we'd be in a much better position now! :mad:

Shane07

So true Waterford would be a different place if that person had not been objecting to everything and we wouldnt be in such a bad place retail wise! At least we have a ready to go site now which will be developed and hopefully the city square extension will also start soon.

wellboytoo

Shane07 wrote: »

So true Waterford would be a different place if that person had not been objecting to everything and we wouldnt be in such a bad place retail wise! At least we have a ready to go site now which will be developed and hopefully the city square extension will also start soon.

Been tempted sooooo many times to get him with the door when I pass him on his bike.

Marchandire

Jaysus, I haven't seen the 'magical shopping centre' theory on here for a while. Seems like old times.

Sure, we built one at the Six Cross Roads, another at Railway Square and another in Ferrybank and they're all basically empty, but another couple would fix all our problems, right?

The problem with Waterford is that we've been losing our manufacturing base for years. It's been happening since the 80s and when the foundry and the crystal closed it just exacerbated the issue. We replaced too many well-paid factory jobs with call centre workers and shop assistants.

We simply don't have enough skilled jobs around the city to support the businesses we already have - which is why M&S never came here, for example. Planning issues had nothing to do with it. We handed out planning permission like confetti during the boom and even then we couldn't attract high-end retailers.

Kilkenny was always a tourist town and never had a lot of manufacturing, so they naturally attract shoppers and day-trippers. Their local economy is geared toward that.

Ours isn't. At best this retail nonsense will create low paying and part-time jobs (70% of the jobs out in B&Q were part-time, for example) and allow large retailers to drive even more local businesses into bankruptcy.

I don't know why retail is an article of faith with so many people on here, but they're ignoring the fundamental flaws in our local economy, which have been brewing for decades. I suppose it's just easier to go after the low-hanging fruit and ignore the other problems. That Brendan McCann is a handy fella when you need a scapegoat, isn't he?

wellboytoo

Marchandire wrote: »

Jaysus, I haven't seen the 'magical shopping centre' theory on here for a while. Seems like old times.

Sure, we built one at the Six Cross Roads, another at Railway Square and another in Ferrybank and they're all basically empty, but another couple would fix all our problems, right? Agreed but they're in the wrong place and should never have gotten planning

The problem with Waterford is that we've been losing our manufacturing base for years. It's been happening since the 80s and when the foundry and the crystal closed it just exacerbated the issue. We replaced too many well-paid factory jobs with call centre workers and shop assistants.
Agreed our lack of political power and poor access for many years and our ability to shoot ourselves in the foot on a labour front did not help us

We simply don't have enough skilled jobs around the city to support the businesses we already have - which is why M&S never came here, for example. Planning issues had nothing to do with it. We handed out planning permission like confetti during the boom and even then we couldn't attract high-end retailers.
Bollocks we didn't have the place to put them, they made several attempts to come to Waterford but in places like out of town centres where they were not allowed by planners

Kilkenny was always a tourist town and never had a lot of manufacturing, so they naturally attract shoppers and day-trippers. Their local economy is geared toward that.

Ours isn't. At best this retail nonsense will create low paying and part-time jobs (70% of the jobs out in B&Q were part-time, for example) and allow large retailers to drive even more local businesses into bankruptcy.

I don't know why retail is an article of faith with so many people on here, but they're ignoring the fundamental flaws in our local economy, which have been brewing for decades. I suppose it's just easier to go after the low-hanging fruit and ignore the other problems. That Brendan McCann is a handy fella when you need a scapegoat, isn't he? No he is not he did a ten year hatchet job on the City Centre for some petty little self aggrandizement scheme to massage his own ego don't try make him seem an innocent abroad in this, him and his fellow traveler set out to stop all development in the City good and bad.

old gregg

Back on topic ..... (the gardens) ...... A really cool initiative and looking forward to enjoying this.

navalus

we have a park in Johns Lane ( Wyse Park) never used , I hope this wont be the case with the New Street gardens.

Hoffmans

BBM77 wrote: »

Because the city centre is in dire need of modern retail space and the Newgate site is the best site to fix this problem and create jobs. So that site has to be kept vacant to achieve long term gain instead of short sighted quick fixes.

your quite dillusional if you think that part of town needs another white elephant of empty retail space we have europes most expensive library in ferrybank, and the other empty places already mentioned ,
Wyse park had to be railed and locked to keep the junkies out this area will be right up their new street.....

Shane07

The reason why a lot of the big retailers are not in Waterford at the moment is because they cannot get the required large space in the city centre that is the only reason,Ferrybank shopping centre is empty because it should have never been built in its location if that was standing on New Street it would be open now!.The only hope for the city centre is this development.Ferrybank SC is Kilkenny Co Cos problem leave them deal with it, Why should we stop the redevelopment of our city centre just because they cannot fill that shopping centre,after all everyone knows it was only given the go ahead as a rates grabber!!

Max Powers

priority number one for that site is to get newgate centre up and started, I think even with the talk of NAMA and city council, its still couple years away even if all the local TDs and mayor mention that they are working on it any time they get a chance (as if we believe they can do anything constructive about anything).

The gardens look well but will cost money to maintain and might end up as an area for anti social behaviour/toilet at 3am/drinking etc. I think we already have a few nice public areas, Wyse park is completely unused as it is, if the opportunity arised to sell it for a suitable purpose (eg. offices in the hope that some jobs may happen with govt support or something....I can dream), I would do so.

fuzzy dunlop

Marchandire wrote: »

Jaysus, I haven't seen the 'magical shopping centre' theory on here for a while. Seems like old times.

Sure, we built one at the Six Cross Roads, another at Railway Square and another in Ferrybank and they're all basically empty, but another couple would fix all our problems, right?

The problem with Waterford is that we've been losing our manufacturing base for years. It's been happening since the 80s and when the foundry and the crystal closed it just exacerbated the issue. We replaced too many well-paid factory jobs with call centre workers and shop assistants.

We simply don't have enough skilled jobs around the city to support the businesses we already have - which is why M&S never came here, for example. Planning issues had nothing to do with it. We handed out planning permission like confetti during the boom and even then we couldn't attract high-end retailers.

Kilkenny was always a tourist town and never had a lot of manufacturing, so they naturally attract shoppers and day-trippers. Their local economy is geared toward that.

Ours isn't. At best this retail nonsense will create low paying and part-time jobs (70% of the jobs out in B&Q were part-time, for example) and allow large retailers to drive even more local businesses into bankruptcy.

I don't know why retail is an article of faith with so many people on here, but they're ignoring the fundamental flaws in our local economy, which have been brewing for decades. I suppose it's just easier to go after the low-hanging fruit and ignore the other problems. That Brendan McCann is a handy fella when you need a scapegoat, isn't he?

Retail is an article of faith because it is the best practice way to keep a city centre sustainable.This ihas been known since the 1960's by economists and urban planners alike. It hasn't been picked out of the ether. And your factory analysis is deeply flawed. As is your tourism analysis. Waterford always had a significant tourism pull due to the Crystal Factory Showrooms and this has been centralized to the city centre now. Your idea that the people of the city and them alone are the ones that sustain the business is very rudimentary and does not correlate with reality. It is similar to the idea by shop owners who oppose motorways and bypasses because they think that they will lose trade when cars are removed from city centre when the reality is the congestion caused by cars causes more loss of trade as they make town centres more uncomfortable to be in and frankly unpleasent places to be. Yes the six cross roads lay empty for a long time but Butlerstown didn't. Nor did it stop business sprouting up all over the place on the opposite of the six cross roads. Yes Ferrybank SC is empty but it should never have been built in the first place but it didn't stop Aldi or Lidl doing business. The proposal for Newgate was a different type of proposal entirely than what has developed around Butlerstown and the six cross roads. The strategy by the planners in Waterford ws to diversify the types of business in the city centre and services and also maintain a reasonable proportion of city centre residents. This is a bottom up development which will help the city become more attractive but unless it links in with the with the city and the football generated by retail then it will just become a haven for winos and junkies.

Cabaal

fuzzy dunlop, any chance you can please introduce paragraphs into your long posts such as the above?
Really makes them hard to read otherwise as you just build a wall of text

7upfree

Great post by wellboy too. It's only when you see it presented like that ou realise the damage that has been done. An absolute scandal.

old gregg

I hope the gardens turn into a beautiful and positive resource for the city. Life is what it is and for good or bad, the development didn't happen and we now have the opportunity to turn a part of our city centre into a place of beauty. Even if that is only for a few years. Personally, I'd be happy to see Waterford gain a reputation (for the first time) as a place to come and visit because it's a beautiful city.

For sure it could turn into a shooting gallery for junkies but that's a choice we have a say in. Or we can do nothing and allow it to degenerate and then drag this thread back up again to trawl over past wrongs.

I'm not stating an opinion on the development that never happened. That's in the past and we can't turn back time.

longshanks

Isn't there an entrance off the beer garden at the back of Geoffs that opens opposite theses gardens?

old gregg

I reckon so

Gadgie

longshanks wrote: »

Isn't there an entrance off the beer garden at the back of Geoffs that opens opposite theses gardens?

No, that's the park in John's Lane.

New Street Garden is across the road from where Rainbow Records and the outdoor shop used to be.

Google Maps link: http://goo.gl/maps/izyMv

Silverado

These gardens will be a great addition to the street which has been a little sad for some time now. They will also be a nice quiet haven for people to sit and sunbathe/eat sandwiches on fine summer days. However at night they could be an ideal spot for unwelcome cider parties or maybe even worse.

The most sensible solution to this problem is to put floodlighting on the multistory car park and surrounding buildings to light up the park completely and also to install CCTV cameras. The new development around the Viking Triangle is being done like that at the moment.

foobally

The very last thing we need is to destroy the city centre with more horrible shopping centres.

1) There's already a ton of vacant units all over town, most of O'Connell is empty, there's a massive empty site on The Glen and another one in the middle of Ballybricken, not to mention Railway Square which has been noted above and a few empty spots in City Square. If a big retailer wants to come to the city, there's plenty of space for them. Look at Next, they had a place but they left, there's no lack of space for retailers.

2) People don't go into city centres the way they used, people do the grocery shopping in bulk on a Saturday in a warehouse shop and get electronics and entertainment online. The real attraction for city centres is tourists and people coming in for a day of shopping, e.g. getting clothes, having a coffee and a chat with friends. The way to attract these people is to have a nice, pleasant city centre experience, something these gardens are a great example of, it would be great if they were kept beyond the few years they're supposed to be here, Waterford is missing a nice city centre garden for people to relax in. Regarding shopping centres, look at the back of City Square, it's a ruin, the road is in ****, there's not enough footpath and it's just a big ugly pink wall with vents and shutters, there will never be a pleasant shopping atmosphere along that street. If you had shops, restaurants and cafes there facing onto the street, it'd be a much better experience, it would draw people from all over and give Waterford a great reputation, increasing its attraction. We have the potential to be a beautiful, European city with lovely narrow winding streets, other Irish cities don't have that potential, if we build another raft of shopping centres we'll turn into another generic Anglosphere city, even more than it is already, with absolutely no reason for people to move here or come and visit.

3) Demanding more government infrastructure projects ignores the underlying economic reasons why Waterford is in the state it's in, as mentioned above the manufactories are gone, we need something to replace them. It also shows a dependent attitude, asking Mommy government to come along and fix all our problems with a ****load of money. We need a new economic direction for the city, tech start ups seems like an obvious first choice cause of the cheapness of the city, or a destination for English learners, but getting the government to wreck the city by ****ting out a load of cookie-cutter shopping centres won't do anything to adress the core reasons for Waterford's decline and will probably only further it.

fuzzy dunlop

foobally wrote: »

The very last thing we need is to destroy the city centre with more horrible shopping centres.

1) There's already a ton of vacant units all over town, most of O'Connell is empty, there's a massive empty site on The Glen and another one in the middle of Ballybricken, not to mention Railway Square which has been noted above and a few empty spots in City Square. If a big retailer wants to come to the city, there's plenty of space for them. Look at Next, they had a place but they left, there's no lack of space for retailers.

2) People don't go into city centres the way they used, people do the grocery shopping in bulk on a Saturday in a warehouse shop and get electronics and entertainment online. The real attraction for city centres is tourists and people coming in for a day of shopping, e.g. getting clothes, having a coffee and a chat with friends. The way to attract these people is to have a nice, pleasant city centre experience, something these gardens are a great example of, it would be great if they were kept beyond the few years they're supposed to be here, Waterford is missing a nice city centre garden for people to relax in. Regarding shopping centres, look at the back of City Square, it's a ruin, the road is in ****, there's not enough footpath and it's just a big ugly pink wall with vents and shutters, there will never be a pleasant shopping atmosphere along that street. If you had shops, restaurants and cafes there facing onto the street, it'd be a much better experience, it would draw people from all over and give Waterford a great reputation, increasing its attraction. We have the potential to be a beautiful, European city with lovely narrow winding streets, other Irish cities don't have that potential, if we build another raft of shopping centres we'll turn into another generic Anglosphere city, even more than it is already, with absolutely no reason for people to move here or come and visit.

3) Demanding more government infrastructure projects ignores the underlying economic reasons why Waterford is in the state it's in, as mentioned above the manufactories are gone, we need something to replace them. It also shows a dependent attitude, asking Mommy government to come along and fix all our problems with a ****load of money. We need a new economic direction for the city, tech start ups seems like an obvious first choice cause of the cheapness of the city, or a destination for English learners, but getting the government to wreck the city by ****ting out a load of cookie-cutter shopping centres won't do anything to adress the core reasons for Waterford's decline and will probably only further it.

People keep coming up with this type of basic analysis but it soes not add up to diidly squat.As has been explained already the type of retail space that is required is not available. You can have a million square feet of retail space but if it is not the right type then it will not attract new retail. Retail is like any other business it needs to develop with the times.Empty shops don't equate to available retail space. In the same way that an empty factory from the 1920''s doesn;t equate to a suitable location for a modern factory.In any case the city is larger population wise than it was twenty years ago so the number of people in emplyment is higher as well as the purchasing power. The population of citys hinterland is considerable larger than it was twenty years ago.As to the reasons why people go into town nowadays then that is simply more misinformed theory. There is plenty on offer in the city centre with regard to shopping,cafes, tourism etc so it is not wanting by any means in that regard.

7upfree

foobally wrote: »

The very last thing we need is to destroy the city centre with more horrible shopping centres.

Look around you. They are the lifeblood of most modern City Centres. They are what attract shoppers. A basic necessity for economic success.

Unfortunately, a select group of people - including, unbelievably a trade union body - took it upon themselves to retract the growth of Waterford city Centre to the detriment of the City itself. It beggars belief. Were it not for Penneys and City Square Waterford would be dead in the water.

Shane07

Anybody have an update on when the City Square project is starting? The Card Shop is gone now across from Burger King so its only the 02 store left to move I presume!

old gregg

For any who might wish to support the New Street garden project:

"The New Street Garden Project is about re-energising a vacant and dis-used space in the heart of Waterford City, by creating a garden with a festival feel. We hope that building a park on this empty lot will be a great start in beautifying and regenerating the area. The New St. Garden project is about creating a space for individuals and groups to submit their artistic ideas and get involved in the garden build, and its on-going summer programme of events. "

http://fundit.ie/project/funders/new-street-gardens-project

Hoffmans

Why isn't nama funding this its their site ?

old gregg

Hoffmans wrote: »

Why isn't nama funding this its their site ?

It's not a nama site is likely the reason. AFAIK City Council have been given use of the land for a 5 year period. The New Street Gardens project is part funded by city council. Everything else including labor is voluntary. Much of what you see in the gardens has been provided by volunteers.

One of the objectives of the fundit campaign is to encourage folks to contribute to a facility that will be of benefit to them.

Cabaal

old gregg wrote: »

One of the objectives of the fundit campaign is to encourage folks to contribute to a facility that will be of benefit to them.

The upside of such a thing is local people are much more likely to care about the project then if the council just threw a load of money at it and did all the work,

Thats very much a good thing,

Tess Tickle

Retailing is shrinking everywhere due to online sales,less record/game shops ,phone shops ,video rentals,less banks.