€300M Investment into Waterford City

Bards

alta stare wrote: »

Finally a a worthy reply from a poster without the word negative in it.

Should we be funding the bridge and train station..... absolutely.

If the North Quays do not happen in their current form then maybe at some time something will. Any infrastructure works done before then will only help in securing development there. Im all for it. Do i believe the current developers will do as they say?...no not really.

I understand we are not footing the bill for the development but people's concerns are simple, this project could end up being a white elephant and some of the money spent of the infrastructure into this development could be wasted.

A hypothetical question here. What if the pedestrian bridge gets built and the developer's start building the North Quays, then halfway through the build goes tits up and suddenly our tax payers bridge goes to no where but a building site... what happens then? Perhaps that is a wild thought but you cannot deny such an issue could arise.

We had a wasteland over there for decades... The bridge will actually link the waterford and new ross greenways and bring the existing City Centre closer to the population of Ferrybank

BBM77

alta stare wrote: »

Finally a a worthy reply from a poster without the word negative in it.

Should we be funding the bridge and train station..... absolutely.

If the North Quays do not happen in their current form then maybe at some time something will. Any infrastructure works done before then will only help in securing development there. Im all for it. Do i believe the current developers will do as they say?...no not really.

I understand we are not footing the bill for the development but people's concerns are simple, this project could end up being a white elephant and some of the money spent of the infrastructure into this development could be wasted.

A hypothetical question here. What if the pedestrian bridge gets built and the developer's start building the North Quays, then halfway through the build goes tits up and suddenly our tax payers bridge goes to no where but a building site... what happens then? Perhaps that is a wild thought but you cannot deny such an issue could arise.

This is what bugs me about yours and others posts. They are all just fail scenarios and I hope it happens but… fail scenarios A or just fail scenarios B.

How about a hypothetical success scenarios?

Also, Waterford has had little in terms of white elephant projects in the past. The council has a good record on stopping these kind of things. And the Ferrybank shopping centre was given permission by Kilkenny county council before you say it. Comments Like this on white elephant projects and Celtic tiger excess is pointless when discussing a project in Waterford city as it generally was not a problem here.

imacman

BBM77 wrote: »

This is what bugs me about yours and others posts. They are all just fail scenarios and I hope it happens but… fail scenarios A or just fail scenarios B.

How about a hypothetical success scenarios?

Also, Waterford has had little in terms of white elephant projects in the past. The council has a good record on stopping these kind of things. And the Ferrybank shopping centre was given permission by Kilkenny county council before you say it. Comments Like this on white elephant projects and Celtic tiger excess is pointless when discussing a project in Waterford city as it generally was not a problem here.

I think there was no celtic tiger excess because Waterford has been a investment black-spot for decades and it wasn't an attractive place to invest rather than a place where the investments was well managed.

BBM77

imacman wrote: »

I think there was no celtic tiger excess because Waterford has been a investment black-spot for decades and it wasn't an attractive place to invest rather than a place where the investments was well managed.

Don't agree and think you are not giving credit were it is due, there were certainly attempts at celtic tiger excess. I can think of four of the top of my head.

Jurys site high rise

Shopping centre on Airport Road/Outer Ring Road

Retail village on old Waterford crystal playing pitch’s on the Cork road

Refused permission to the Michael St shopping centre first time around as it was over development on the site

Dexpat

imacman wrote: »

I think there was no celtic tiger excess because Waterford has been a investment black-spot for decades and it wasn't an attractive place to invest rather than a place where the investments was well managed.

Yeah. It's been an investment blackspot because it wasn't an attractive place to invest.

So give the investors a chance, they now believe it is an attractive place to invest.. From what I can see from the outside it has been very well managed up until now. The investors are serious, they have brought everyone on board and as as been said, they have done their homework and they haven't invested their time/money on a whim.

This is a city centre project, there probably isn't a better location in any town or city in Ireland closer to the existing centre with the potential to make such an impact. This type of investment can break the cycle and lead to much more coming to the city and region in the future (including bringing people back).

I know hospital and WIT upgardes are essential but this coming off will make them more likely if Waterford turns into a real driver of growth for the region. Government money is not being taken from those areas. It is being leveraged to enable a huge amount more to come in.

Impossible to tell at this stage how thinks will turn out economically but eventually, this or something similar has to happen.

Bards

Dexpat wrote: »

Yeah. It's been an investment blackspot because it wasn't an attractive place to invest.

So give the investors a chance, they now believe it is an attractive place to invest.. From what I can see from the outside it has been very well managed up until now. The investors are serious, they have brought everyone on board and as as been said, they have done their homework and they haven't invested their time/money on a whim.

This is a city centre project, there probably isn't a better location in any town or city in Ireland closer to the existing centre with the potential to make such an impact. This type of investment can break the cycle and lead to much more coming to the city and region in the future (including bringing people back).

I know hospital and WIT upgardes are essential but this coming off will make them more likely if Waterford turns into a real driver of growth for the region. Government money is not being taken from those areas. It is being leveraged to enable a huge amount more to come in.

Impossible to tell at this stage how thinks will turn out economically but eventually, this or something similar has to happen.

This... There is not many (if any) undeveloped South Facing mile long City Centre Quay Side locations in Europe

Gardner

Bards wrote: »

This... There is not many (if any) undeveloped South Facing mile long City Centre Quay Side locations in Europe

imagine all those south facing salads we could have while reading the Green Party latest press release.

Harry Palmr

What?!

Deiseen

Gardner wrote: »

imagine all those south facing salads we could have while reading the Green Party latest press release.

I'm sure you can eat and read whatever you want.

jelutong

Bards wrote: »

This... There is not many (if any) undeveloped South Facing mile long City Centre Quay Side locations in Europe

And a undeveloped North facing one also.

gscully

Deiseen wrote: »

I'm sure you can eat and read whatever you want.

He's referring to a speech made two weeks ago in the Dail by Eamonn Ryan. It was one of those 'are you really saying this sh!t?' moments.

Wanderer78

gscully wrote: »

He's referring to a speech made two weeks ago in the Dail by Eamonn Ryan. It was one of those 'are you really saying this sh!t?' moments.

he really does come out with some ****e now and again(green party voter!)

alta stare

BBM77 wrote: »

This is what bugs me about yours and others posts. They are all just fail scenarios and I hope it happens but… fail scenarios A or just fail scenarios B.

How about a hypothetical success scenarios?

Also, Waterford has had little in terms of white elephant projects in the past. The council has a good record on stopping these kind of things. And the Ferrybank shopping centre was given permission by Kilkenny county council before you say it. Comments Like this on white elephant projects and Celtic tiger excess is pointless when discussing a project in Waterford city as it generally was not a problem here.

Fair enough if it bugs you but surely you agree we can at least have the freedom to post our opinions without being attacked from all angles?

Hypothetical success scenarios? Ok. If it takes off i think it will transform this city. We will have grounds to revisit the boundary issue and the government will surely do the right thing and let the city expand out toward South Kilkenny. It will hopefully lead to us getting a new bridge. For those who love to shop....it will bring big name stores. All hypothetical of course.

The council has previous when it comes to wasting time and money just look at the van issue and credit card issue a few years ago so there is every chance they might be capable of wasting more of our money on this project. Due to my line of work iv seen and heard plenty regarding wasted money by the council. I will agree with you on the planning bit....they are usually bang on with that.

alta stare

Bards wrote: »

We had a wasteland over there for decades... The bridge will actually link the waterford and new ross greenways and bring the existing City Centre closer to the population of Ferrybank

I love the idea of the bridge. It is long over due.

robtri

Came across this
From1996

It gives us hope lol

imacman

Just seen debenhams are pulling out of Ireland completely , massive blow for the city square

Gael23

The closure of Debenhams will rip the heart out of the city Centre.

hardybuck

imacman wrote: »

Just seen debenhams are pulling out of Ireland completely , massive blow for the city square

Unsurprising given their recent issues. Their stock was rubbish as well.

Underlines the need to learn lessons from the demise of the UK highstreet.

MoashoaM

That's bad. Really very bad. I wish I had more words. Bad.

gscully

Haven't M&S been waiting for an ideal location here? This could be it.

hardybuck

gscully wrote: »

Haven't M&S been waiting for an ideal location here? This could be it.

Another struggling UK company.

shockwave

Will need a big name brand to go into that unit. its massive

dzilla

That is going to leave some void in the city center. City Square may partition the store into 3/4 units however and have bigger square footage for some of the shops that need bigger units that the ones on offer.

hardybuck

Presumably they've done their market research and know what type of customer they want to attract, but personally the only reason I'd use City Square is for a short cut.

Would like to see better quality shops taking the space, preferably Irish ones.

BBM77

Gael23 wrote: »

The closure of Debenhams will rip the heart out of the city Centre.

Why? It was nearly always quite. People going into the city centre were clearly going elsewhere.

BBM77

Now that I think about it, I was in Debenhams in Waterford, Cork and Dublin at different times and they were all quite. Part of the problem with the likes of Debenhams and M&S is they have become stale and have not adapted to the age of internet shopping. The likes of Penneys and Zara are booming both having strong internet and physical stores.

blackwhite

BBM77 wrote: »

Now that I think about it, I was in Debenhams in Waterford, Cork and Dublin at different times and they were all quite. Part of the problem with the likes of Debenhams and M&S is they have become stale and have not adapted to the age of internet shopping. The likes of Penneys and Zara are booming both having strong internet and physical stores.

I was in Debenhams between Christmas and New Year's this past Christmas, and the amount of Christmas gift stock that they'd failed to sell was shocking

Harry Palmr

There are two M&S - food and clothing, the former is fine the latter is so 20th century.

imacman

This highlights the risks of retail element of the North Quays development.

ToddyDoody

BBM77 wrote: »

Now that I think about it, I was in Debenhams in Waterford, Cork and Dublin at different times and they were all quite. Part of the problem with the likes of Debenhams and M&S is they have become stale and have not adapted to the age of internet shopping. The likes of Penneys and Zara are booming both having strong internet and physical stores.

Pennys actually has no internet store. They're popular because they're cheap.