Mahon Point... The verdict??

Amnesiac_ie

Debenhams and Zara are twocool additions... any other shops out there I'd like to visit I can get to easier in Wilton or the City Centre. Plus I don't drive so I have to rely on the number 10 or mates any time I want to get out there.

beer enigma

Could do with a few more decent cashpoints - the only one I found working was in Tesco & there was a queue as long as yer arm !!

^whitey^

Andip wrote:

Could do with a few more decent cashpoints - the only one I found working was in Tesco & there was a queue as long as yer arm !!

That's not very long

Raskolnikov

Andip wrote:

Could do with a few more decent cashpoints - the only one I found working was in Tesco & there was a queue as long as yer arm !!

Ridiculous, especially considering how pricey everything is in there.

It's unlikely I'll be visiting again, the mens clothes shops were either ghastly and/or overpriced. The KFC was about the only thing worthwhile in there.

gimmick

Mahon Point = Little Britan.

800 years, now this? That would be a decent protest sign against it

Roar

Raskolnikov wrote:

The KFC was about the only thing worthwhile in there.

pizza hut was feckin dissappointing as well.. 6 quid for a pizza that's barely the size of your average pimple and some manky chips?? arse to that.. fre refills though.. which i abused to the last...

pretty dissappointed bout mahon point... i went down there and it was... a shopping centre.. after all the hype i was expecting jesus to welcome me personally at the door or something....

solice

gimmick wrote:

Mahon Point = Little Britan.

800 years, now this? That would be a decent protest sign against it

Thats a bit crap to be fair

damien

gimmick wrote:

800 years, now this?

Classy. Still not been, though I pass it twice a day and scream as the muppets entering and exiting don't know which lane to use. Only thing of appeal is Debenhams.

parasite

ugh, this place makes me feel agoraphobic and claustrophobic at the same time
calm blue ocean, calm blue ocean ...

gubby

Oh god yeah,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, where in the name of god do they get staff from???
was there the other day.. called to kfc there was a big sign for something called sizzerl (i think) when i asked for it.. one of the staff shouted "we dont have it" ok she didnt say..."sorry, we are out of that at the moment" so i was not sure if they ever had it.. then i asked the guy what they had like it.. know what he said?
"I dont know what that is" commmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmme on...
and they were not busy.. but he was as slow as st peter.
sorry
its my pet gripe.. staff staff staff...
does anyone explaine the concept of customer relations to these people.
grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
makes me so mad
:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

daveirl

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deRanged

daveirl wrote:

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Some of them have been laying off staff already.

rymus

hooray, they might close it, nuke the inside and turn it into an ice rink!

Padraig Mor

daveirl wrote:

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I hope the place is a disaster. It might teach developers to include proper traffic management as part of their plans in future.

rymus

...and a selection of shops that cater for all interests.

invincibleirish

on my maiden trip to mahonpoint friday night two weeks ago,i was walking with my aunt in there,my aunt has a shop in a city centre shopping centre and i was quizzing her as does she feel somewhat threatened by mp,when she said she wasnt i i told her but look at all the people(the place was jammed) and she said but look how many have shopping bags,and she was right only a small few did meaning the crowds were only there (like myself) to have a look around(though i did buy myself a shiny lacoste hat:think stone roses style)

d-j-k

Sorry to disappoint. I know you're hoping for a nice mall-shaped ice rink but from what I've heard most MP shops are way out performing their targets already. There's even an expansion plan (planning already granted and potential tennants fighting eachother off to get in)

As much as you may loath shopping malls it's great to see that Cork can sustain such a huge development and it might prompt the city centre retailers to spruce themselves up a bit. They're very tatty looking in comparision to some of the Dublin stores that have to face much tougher competition.

e.g. I notice River Island's city centre branch got a total relaunch just as MP was opening. Monsoon's being done up and drastically expanded etc etc..

There's a huge shopping development (at least the size of merchant's quay) planned for the area around the Examiner offices. The examiner's printing presses are moving out to Mahon or something and the journalists, editors, marketing, layout, graphics etc people are moving into one of the quay-side office blocks.

I wish some of the mainland European stores would come in though. It'd be nice to see some non boring UK chain stores for a change and to pay genuine Euro prices rather than a £stg price converted to Euro, add 20% squared and multipled by the distance between the earth and moon or whatever crazy formula those stores use to come up with their prices.

shoegirl

I went down myself a couple of weeks ago, and to be honest its poor. I felt that there were just too many clothes shops and if that wasn't your interest then there was nothing in it for you. At least Blackpool has a tacky boy racery car shop. We didn't find the traffic too bad. To be honest they could have tried to diversify the tenants a bit more, but time usually changes tenants anyway so better ones may turn up in time. Haven't visited B&Q yet.

Fast_Mover

Wud ya believe i havnt visited Mahon Point yet...
will visit someday....someday...

rymus

dont waste your energy on it

dahamsta

Whatever about the center itself, the traffic jams it's created are a nightmare. I had to view an apartment in Leitrim Street yesterday evening so I thought I'd be clever and pop under the tunnel and around the north link, but boy was that a mistake. It took me nearly half an hour to travel less than a mile from the mother's gaff to the turnoff in Mahon for Mahon Point. I'm pretty sure that if I hadn't swung out of the queue and taken an alternate route (around Urselines and along the Marina!), the journey would have taken at least 20 mins longer. And it's all caused by the absolutely disgraceful traffic management down by Mahon Point. Whoever designed it should be taken outside and etc etc.

EDIT: Lots of facts and figures being quoted in this thread as to the success/failure of MP btw, but not a single source. Do you guys seriously expect reasonably-minded people to believe a word of what you're saying?

adam

d-j-k

The huge queues of traffic spilling out on the south link are actually not being caused by the shopping centre. The City Council has left the traffic lights that are supposed to be controlling the overpass flashing orange / flashing red for about 6 weeks. Traffic coming from the Douglas side can't out at the top of the slip road as it has no prority so ends up causing a huge queue onto the south ring clogging up traffic for miles.

If you're coming from the tunnel side into mahon point you're forced to take your life into your hands and cross 4 lanes of traffic on the fly over due to the flashing orange lights.

It's incrediable that they're still not switched on!

Someone should take the city council out and etc etc ...

damien

d-j-k wrote:

The huge queues of traffic spilling out on the south link are actually not being caused by the shopping centre.

Eh no. I travel past MP twice a day. Those dumb fcking lights for B&Q and MP mean coming from the tunnel to get to Blackrock is a pain in arse and getting to the tunnel via the MP turn off is another pain. Combine both those lights and the broken ones on the turn off and it's really bad.

trap4

As a non-Corkonian I paid my first visit to Mahon Point yesterday and despite the incessant rain and terrible traffic problems it was a pleasent experience. I agree that the variety of shops is a bit lacking but was very impresssed with the overall look and style of the place. Even though the car parks looked fairly full there was still plent of room inside with lovely wide walkways - a much more pleasant experience that wading through a sea of people like in the Crescent Shopping center in Limerick for example.

The traffic situation is a nightmare though. On my way out I wanted to go across to B&Q and I had to sit through 3 light changes between the exit round-about and the crossroad before getting across. Is there not enough room for a round-about at that junction instead of lights? Or would that only make things worse? Either way it will be a shame if they don't do something because if things were that bad yesterday, a Monday with non-stop rain, I can only imagine how terrible it will be normally

Dizzyblabla

I went there yesterday to get Cinema tickets for tonight (stoopid pubs closing for Good Friday). I asked them if they had the schedule for today and they said no, that it would be on the Echo tomorrow (which would be today now). I couldn't believe that I couldn't get tickets in advance because they had no schedules made out! Madness!

other than that I don't have too many problems with it at all, ya, the traffic is a pain, but rather than going through the magic roundabout to get home, I went through Douglas, which was much much worse! Why are there so many stoopid people on the road??!

Metacortex

I quite like it, its only a short distance from where i live. Its actually easier to go to when i need something instead of going into the city. Im think about heading out to the cinema there later to see what its like.

kevinroche

There is a bid in to show local artists work in Mahon Point using a revolutionary display technique and capitalise on all the unused space in the Centre. It would bring in art into the public domain and provide new energy to MP. All sorts of things could be displayed- Bring the public in to see interesting stuff!

What do ye tink?

dahamsta

Define "revolutionary display technique". The best permanent-but-transient public art I've seen are the simple displays on long walkways in airports, simply because they're unobtrustive, not "in your face". If you're into art, you can admire them; if not you probably won't even notice them.

"Revolutionary display techniques" sounds to me like the work of marketroids; or worse, pretentious "artists" that produce crap. ("Exploding Shed" uses revolutionary display techniques, but I very much doubt the artist would say that out loud.)

adam

invincibleirish

with regards the traffic situation, it doesnt help that both the south ring and tunnel are already operating at near maximum capacity and as there are surely more developments planned for the area (such as the aforementioned mp extension and rumoured concert venue as well as north ring development and n28 dual cariageway to ringaskiddy all connecting to the south ring) traffic is certainly going to get worse down there, ideally upgrading the south ring to a motorway and/or investing big time in public transport (bus/rail) would help but there is fat chance of that happening this side of 2015.

kevinroche

Dear Dahamsta,

You need a really long holiday. Your comments are interesting though.

dahamsta wrote:

Define "revolutionary display technique". The best permanent-but-transient public art I've seen are the simple displays on long walkways in airports, simply because they're unobtrustive, not "in your face". If you're into art, you can admire them; if not you probably won't even notice them.

"Revolutionary display techniques" sounds to me like the work of marketroids; or worse, pretentious "artists" that produce crap. ("Exploding Shed" uses revolutionary display techniques, but I very much doubt the artist would say that out loud.)

adam