€300M Investment into Waterford City

BBM77

azimuth17 wrote: »

If this development goes ahead, someone will have to put big money into it. Something around €300m is the figure. That being said, you would expect anyone spending that kind of money to have the retail picture locally, nationally and internationally at their finger tips and certainly to be more knowledgeable than any commentators on this thread. Internet spending is huge and growing. The North Quays is perfect for hotel, conference centre, office space, some apartments/housing and some retail. We have no reasonable size, high spec office space available at present in the city. Expect the retail element to be less dominant than originally proposed when the scheme gets off the ground with possible planning applications for variations. Building Michael Street makes some sort of sense to stabilize the existing city centre. Its also not huge and could swallow three or four national retailers. Also interesting that retail floor space in the city is said to be at an all time high when one considers the Harvey Normans, The Range, Home Store and More, JYSK of this world. Traditional city centre retailing is having difficulty everywhere. That will continue to be the case unless governments tax or have some other impact on internet retailing.

When considering the challenges city centre retail faces these days Waterford is actually holding up well. If a good unit becomes available if is always taken quickly. The reality is there is good scope for retail expansion in Waterford considering population. As already said comparing Waterford to Carlow/Clonmel/Kilkenny is not a valid comparison. Kilkenny is the biggest of the three and that would not have half the population of Waterford city not along the city and surrounding area.

Harry Palmr

Unless someone knows something they are not telling the rest of us I'm not sure why anyone would be in a flap about Michael Street, it's part of the whole scheme.

Deiseen

imacman wrote: »

I dont believe there is millions leaving the city /region for shopping in Dublin or Cork outside Christmas time , its being spent on amazon and generally online. Building massive shopping centers as a reaction to this isn't the answer and stinks of celtic tiger vanity builds to me.

Funnily enough, AIB are doing a presentation this morning on retail/tourism leakage out of the region.

This is estimated at over €1.2 billion.

People arguing that the North Quays will be detrimental to the city/region really need to get their heads out of the sand and face the reality of the dire situation within the city and the wider South East region.

Dunmoreroader

imacman wrote: »

I dont believe there is millions leaving the city /region for shopping in Dublin or Cork outside Christmas time , its being spent on amazon and generally online. Building massive shopping centers as a reaction to this isn't the answer and stinks of celtic tiger vanity builds to me.

Deiseen wrote: »

Funnily enough, AIB are doing a presentation this morning on retail/tourism leakage out of the region.

This is estimated at over €1.2 billion.

People arguing that the North Quays will be detrimental to the city/region really need to get their heads out of the sand and face the reality of the dire situation within the city and the wider South East region.

I don't understand how anyone is still arguing that there isn't retail leakage out of the region, and not just to the internet? Read the research, there are a number of reports corroborating this view.

hardybuck

Deiseen wrote: »

Funnily enough, AIB are doing a presentation this morning on retail/tourism leakage out of the region.

This is estimated at over €1.2 billion.

People arguing that the North Quays will be detrimental to the city/region really need to get their heads out of the sand and face the reality of the dire situation within the city and the wider South East region.

Did they provide any analysis on the level of leakage in other regions, or leakage that Ireland experiences generally?

Deiseen

hardybuck wrote: »

Did they provide any analysis on the level of leakage in other regions, or leakage that Ireland experiences generally?

Not sure but we are the worst region for leakage apparently.

hardybuck

Deiseen wrote: »

Not sure but we are the worst region for leakage apparently.

Ok - context is always interesting. It would be interesting to see by how much.

Max Powers

Dunmoreroader wrote: »

I don't understand how anyone is still arguing that there isn't retail leakage out of the region, and not just to the internet? Read the research, there are a number of reports corroborating this view.

Very true, I think the council had a report on such years ago.it ain't a new phenomenon here

hardybuck

Dunmoreroader wrote: »

I don't understand how anyone is still arguing that there isn't retail leakage out of the region, and not just to the internet? Read the research, there are a number of reports corroborating this view.

Who is arguing that leakage doesn't exist in the region, or every other region for that matter?

MartyMcFly84

Retails is down everywhere. Everyone is buying significantly more online these days. The convenience of cheaper prices, far greater selection and home delivery is putting many traditional retail shops out of business.

Waterford is suffering because there is very little selection in the city centre. Far too many charity shops, Euro store/Deals, Pennys. Not the type of retail that will attract people into the City Centre.

Harry Palmr

The trick is to appeal to the sensory aspect of consumerism - no one wants to smell, flex, or rub gently a 200 euro android tablet but clothes, shoes etc are a different matter. The type of retail on the North Quays will I'm sure reflect that.

imacman

Has anyone ever been to the celtic tiger Scotch hall quarter in Drogheda. Its a smaller but similar site , post industrial dockland, it has a large shopping centre, hotel with conference centre, cinema and apartments. The news story from 2003 when work started - it sounds very familiar , it even had the second shopping centre being developed in the town centre at the same time.
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/commercial-property/work-starts-on-120m-drogheda-scheme-1.382003

vriesmays

Meanwhile in Bray https://fora.ie/bray-florentine-centre-2-3439752-Jun2017/

Max Powers

Harry Palmr wrote: »

The trick is to appeal to the sensory aspect of consumerism - no one wants to smell, flex, or rub gently a 200 euro android tablet but clothes, shoes etc are a different matter. The type of retail on the North Quays will I'm sure reflect that.

You'd imagine so yeah, they own a significant amount of big names, more commonly found on the continent if I remember, could be ideal to have a few names especially if good and not elsewhere.

MoashoaM

Barronstrand (Mulligans) development application
http://www.eplanning.ie/WaterfordCCC/AppFileRefDetails/2010/0

I think it's an elegant build. I hope this is approved.

dzilla

MoashoaM wrote: »

Barronstrand (Mulligans) development application
http://www.eplanning.ie/WaterfordCCC/AppFileRefDetails/2010/0

I think it's an elegant build. I hope this is approved.

Really nice

Harry Palmr

Does anyone have any info on this? has it just stopped dead, while not being actually dead, for now?

Wanderer78

Harry Palmr wrote:

Does anyone have any info on this? has it just stopped dead, while not being actually dead, for now?

If a major recession occurs, you d have to wonder about it

BBM77

Wanderer78 wrote: »

If a major recession occurs, you d have to wonder about it

There will be a lot of pent up demand so things may bounce back quickly.

Johnboy1951

Wanderer78 wrote: »

If a major recession occurs, you d have to wonder about it

I believe there is no avoiding a major recession world-wide.

Of course the thing to do then is to build infrastructure at the cheapest cost with the pick of the crop for contractors.

Credit is about as cheap as it can be.

Hopefully our (future) gov will see the long term benefit and fully support this.

Wanderer78

BBM77 wrote:

There will be a lot of pent up demand so things may bounce back quickly.

'Pent up demand', just like after the last recession! Humans dont behave and think like this, we become fearful and anxious, we hoard money and spend less until there is confidence to do so, that all takes time, this is why statements such as 'keep the recovery going' failed spectacularly, economies don't all of a sudden switch back on. There could be wide scale job losses here, I'd imagine consumable demand will rocket from this! This all could get a little scary again unfortunately

alta stare

Wanderer78 wrote: »

'Pent up demand', just like after the last recession! Humans dont behave and think like this, we become fearful and anxious, we hoard money and spend less until there is confidence to do so, that all takes time, this is why statements such as 'keep the recovery going' failed spectacularly, economies don't all of a sudden switch back on. There could be wide scale job losses here, I'd imagine consumable demand will rocket from this! This all could get a little scary again unfortunately

This is what scares me. The potential for our economy to hit the floor for a prolonged period of time is quite high. Unless there is understanding from city councils, banks, suppliers alot of businessess may never recover from this. So far i am lucky to still be in work but i think we are close to a point where we loose our jobs and there is no confidence that we all will get them back.

BBM77

Wanderer78 wrote: »

'Pent up demand', just like after the last recession! Humans dont behave and think like this, we become fearful and anxious, we hoard money and spend less until there is confidence to do so, that all takes time, this is why statements such as 'keep the recovery going' failed spectacularly, economies don't all of a sudden switch back on. There could be wide scale job losses here, I'd imagine consumable demand will rocket from this! This all could get a little scary again unfortunately

This is just a speculative worst case scenario.

Some people become fearful and anxious a lot of people have a more positive outlook on life.

mayordenis

Armchair economists who think humans act in one 'rational' manner are not to be trusted.

imacman

With at least a global slowdown on the way which could turn into a recession and the public finances channeled to dealing with the coronavirus and its aftermath I can see the north quays development getting mothballed.And then the question is how long will the Saudis wait before they pull their investment out and the whole thing becomes a pipe dream .

BBM77

mayordenis wrote: »

Armchair economists who think humans act in one 'rational' manner are not to be trusted.

My posts were positive so I am clearly not an economists.

Flow Motion

BBM77 wrote: »

This is just a speculative worst case scenario.

Some people become fearful and anxious a lot of people have a more positive outlook on life.

Might come across all hippie-ish here but anyone notice how "nature" has begun to bounce back in such a short time...CO2 levels dropping, fish returning to the canals in Venice, no smog in Delhi/Mumbai to name but a few. We share the planet with other plants and species. Meanwhile, the lads in Waterford want to know if the North Quays is still gonna go ahead..:rolleyes::rolleyes:

Stopitwillya

The bridge connecting the city centre and the north Quays just gone to the tender stage according to Eddie Mulligan's Facebook page.

Stopitwillya

The bridge connecting the city centre and the north Quays just gone to the tender stage according to Eddie Mulligan's Facebook page.

Stopitwillya

The bridge connecting the city centre and the north Quays just gone to the tender stage according to Eddie Mulligan's Facebook page.