Limerick city centre (Urban Renewal discusion and updates)

billy the squid

funny you should mention jurys

i took this from steamboat quay of that development. check the height of the cranes

Limerick Dude

billy the squid wrote:

Also work on the tunnel will start in march.

billy the squid

Limerick Dude wrote:

95fm have been saying it all day in their news.

Limerick Dude

cool

vkid

www.thestrandlimerick.com gives you some idea what it will look like...looks cool enough

billy the squid wrote:

funny you should mention jurys

i took this from steamboat quay of that development. check the height of the cranes

Spengman

The original plan for the jurys site was to have a 12 storey hotel and and apartments in a seperate block but after objections from local residents the council imposed conditions and these included reducing the height of the hotel to 10 storeys,also included in the plans was a 6-8 storey apartment block!. I wouldnt be getting too excited about the design, to me it looks the same as any apartment development etc anywhere in the country, very similar to many developments here in limerick already, that mock georgian brick work is being used again:mad: ,the developers could surely have shown some more ambition here, its a serious letdown compared to riverpoint which is bold and striking!, this however is very bland!

Amazotheamazing

Think it's awful, about 2 the height of anything else on that side of the river, without the style of Riverpoint to balance it out.really reeks of the planning office just not giving a damn about their job. Pity. I wonder will it be the next Munchins house?

vkid

don't think that side of the river should be used for high rise at all. it is mainly residential and high rise should be kept to the opposite side of the river where commercial enterprises are. It might not be the most striking design but it is certainly better than what Jurys was..a far sight better. I think if you don't to an extent, follow the Georgian architecture of the city as it stands you'll end up with a mish mash of building styles like Galway has (which to be fair is not the most attractive in places). You can't compare this to Munchins house which in no way had any relation to the Georgian red brick buildings that are all over the city. Its design was relative to nothing else in the city. It was just a plain lazy design. Just my opinion

limerick_man

Yeah, i think so too, that side is main a reservation anyway, having skyscrapers beside a little forest type set up would be weird, plus you most think of the value of the houses on that side, i think its best to keep that fairly bland!!!

mysterious

I agree that it is'nt the best they could have done with that site, I would have being interested to see the 12 storey design I mean 12 storeys is'nt high afterall that area is not low density and should be kept to high density along the Riverfront, 15 storeys might be a bit much but the reality its not giving a whole lot of negative impact when there is a hospital and Bridge there?? not to mention all the development around the old racecourse and Ennis roads.

C'mon its on the riverfront it would have being perfect landmark coming from the main artery the Ennis road, the extra to storey's would have made it less bland, As all the new buildings on the riverfront on the Dublins docks is bland as its all box shaped and 5/6 storeys high,

Anyways I'm all up for high rise there.:)

Inge Binge

Can I ask you something as a foreigner? It might be a bit OT - or not. Why do you all live in those housingestates where one building looks like another? There is no creativity in colour or shape. 50 houses in a crescent and all look the same. Why? If you come from the continent the you wonder why there are no decent apartmentbuildings. I've learned that the irish love there house and a bit of land. Fair enough! But why so uncreative with the houses? Is it true that there was decades ago only two or three types of bungalows allowed to build and that the government was selling the plans for 1 punt? Is it that why the estates all look the same?

Back to riverside. My experience with friends who are visiting me: if you come from shannon they are all astonished about the really great impression that this row gives. But as soon as you pass henry street and arrive at o'connel or wiliamstreet every impression vanishes. Are those building "Potemkin's Villages" to Limerick?

IB

Secret lump

Hey, has anyone seen the oil painting of Riverpoint tower in the reception area of City Hall. Its lovely, not sure who painted it.

Amazotheamazing

Inge Binge wrote:

Back to riverside. My experience with friends who are visiting me: if you come from shannon they are all astonished about the really great impression that this row gives. But as soon as you pass henry street and arrive at o'connel or wiliamstreet every impression vanishes. Are those building "Potemkin's Villages" to Limerick?

IB

Inge, you have to realise that Limerick is only slowing pulling itself out of years of neglect and decline. I don't think you find anyone who'll disagree with your analysis of O'Connell street and in particular, William Street. There are plans for the regeneration of these streets, and I'm hopeful that these plans will bring O'Connell Street up to the standard of Patrick Street in Cork for example. Riverpoint and Henry Street are the beginning points in Limerick city's regeneration, not an end in themselves. Can I ask what your friends thought of Limerick? Did they enjoy themselves or did they try and get you to leave with them the following morning?

Mysterious, why do you support bland highrise on the residental side of the river?

Inge Binge

Amazo,
sure it cant be done with a click of a finger.

My friends were (or still are) Germans. They came and enjoyed it. Germans on holiday trips have a very pink view of Ireland. Everything is packed in some pink cloud. Even if you would bring them to Moyross - thats urban irish - poor but happy! My friends saw only the lovely colourful doors in the georgian houses but not the dirty windows above. But me, after 2.5 years in Limerick (and still a crap english *g*) i allow myself to look behind the facades and to ask questions. Ok, mostly to myself but I call it a kind of "my" city as well.

I think it was alredy mentioned here that in some streets everything obove groundfloor looks dirty in the towncenter. Who owns those builings? Why don't they care how they look like and what impression this gives?

I don't support bland highrise on the residential side of the river. Quite contrary i asked why this is all so dreary.

IB

vkid

I'm interested to see what it turns out like, what materials are used (will it just be concrete render on the ouside or marbley stuff like the Riverpoint). Those drawings can be misleading and the building closest the Ennis Road doesn;t look like there's much Red brick..it looks like there's a lot of glass.
Don't think things should be drab on that side of the river but definitely restrained. The focus should be on the commercial side of the city. Hopefully the ESB site might see some more high rise.
Compare the Jurys design to the old heap of ****e that Dunnes have on the other side of the bridge..i know which i prefer. Dunnes should be shot for leaving that buiilding the way it is and would hope the city council are putting pressure on them and Roches to get the finger out.

billy the squid

the raheen route still needs one of these



I dont know why people are building all this high density stuff in the city centre when the public transport system is ****.

limerick_man

WHAT?? The new Raheen service is in trouble they have upped prices again to try and cover the costs since christmas i've gotten on that bus in the city twice and been the only one (or with my friend so the only 2 that time). And I've only been in the city like 5 times in the past two weeks!
Umm.. Billy, if people are living in the city, then they dont need public stransport to get there!!! Dublin is a prime example of urban spralling gone wrong!

irishguy

limerick_man wrote:

WHAT?? The new Raheen service is in trouble they have upped prices again to try and cover the costs since christmas i've gotten on that bus in the city twice and been the only one (or with my friend so the only 2 that time). And I've only been in the city like 5 times in the past two weeks!
Umm.. Billy, if people are living in the city, then they dont need public stransport to get there!!! Dublin is a prime example of urban spralling gone wrong!

It was always busy when they ran every 15mins, has it gone up from €1.25 ?

Inge Binge

I'd say (working in Raheen) there is a demand to the Bus in the morning and in the evening. I think it's a step in the right direction to offer busses going into the industrial estate instead of going just to the roundabout.

BUT it would be better the busses would go to the other side of the raheen business park as well. At the moment they go "only" (better then nothing!) until BANTA (behind DELL). But there are so many people working on the other side in Sercom, Flextronic, Power one, Arise et al. There are some busses in the morning going to this part of the Ind. Est. but guess what the direction sign (or however you call it in english) says: 343 SHANNON!!! Or you take the bus with no direction sign at all. How can people guess this. I mean, this is ridicolous - 343 Shannon. Every morning!! In the evening there are no busses from this part of the Ind Est. back to town. If you are lucke then you can take the DELL bus which is actually only for DELL employees. Why is everything so complicated? If they would provide a proper bus serve then, im sure, more people (incl me) would use it. Why are they doing only half things?

irishguy wrote:

It was always busy when they ran every 15mins, has it gone up from €1.25 ?

It's 1.30 now but daysaver tickets are available for 3 EUROs

Amazotheamazing

Inge Binge wrote:

Amazo,
But me, after 2.5 years in Limerick i allow myself to look behind the facades and to ask questions. Ok, mostly to myself but I call it a kind of "my" city as well.

I think it was alredy mentioned here that in some streets everything obove groundfloor looks dirty in the towncenter. Who owns those builings? Why don't they care how they look like and what impression this gives?

I don't support bland highrise on the residential side of the river. Quite contrary i asked why this is all so dreary.

IB

Well, I can only suppose that the owners want to wait until the actual street level is improved and traffic is reduced before they do anything with their individual premises. I have heard shop-owners on William Street complaining that they simply can't afford to do large scale refurbishment due to the high rates, either way something needs to be done.

Sorry about the bland highrise comment, I was actually asking Mysterious why he was in favour of it but it probably didn't come across well.

irishguy

Inge Binge wrote:

I'd say (working in Raheen) there is a demand to the Bus in the morning and in the evening. I think it's a step in the right direction to offer busses going into the industrial estate instead of going just to the roundabout.

BUT it would be better the busses would go to the other side of the raheen business park as well. At the moment they go "only" (better then nothing!) until BANTA (behind DELL). But there are so many people working on the other side in Sercom, Flextronic, Power one, Arise et al. There are some busses in the morning going to this part of the Ind. Est. but guess what the direction sign (or however you call it in english) says: 343 SHANNON!!! Or you take the bus with no direction sign at all. How can people guess this. I mean, this is ridicolous - 343 Shannon. Every morning!! In the evening there are no busses from this part of the Ind Est. back to town. If you are lucke then you can take the DELL bus which is actually only for DELL employees. Why is everything so complicated? If they would provide a proper bus serve then, im sure, more people (incl me) would use it. Why are they doing only half things?



It's 1.30 now but daysaver tickets are available for 3 EUROs

Robbing ****ers it has whent up every year now for the last 4 Years and the service has gone down every year, i dont mine paying if the service is good but i can walk across town to college faster than the bus can get there.

1huge1

cant blame them for the traffic, its the government you should be on to

Inge Binge

Who runs the citybusses? Who owns Bus Eireann? Who owns Córas Iompair Éireann? Is it a state company or a private one? So... blame the Government!

IB

gaf1983

Inge Binge wrote:

BUT it would be better the busses would go to the other side of the raheen business park as well. At the moment they go "only" (better then nothing!) until BANTA (behind DELL). But there are so many people working on the other side in Sercom, Flextronic, Power one, Arise et al. There are some busses in the morning going to this part of the Ind. Est. but guess what the direction sign (or however you call it in english) says: 343 SHANNON!!! Or you take the bus with no direction sign at all......

My advice to you, Inge Binge, would be to contact Bus Eireann with your complaints and suggestions for improvement, the more people that do that, the better chance there is that they will improve their service.

Also, regarding your dismay at the amount of identical semi-detatched houses all over the country, I'd recommend you read Frank Mc Donald and James Nix's new book, "Chaos at the Crossroads." I haven't read it yet, but I can't wait to, and from what I've heard about it the authors highlight nearly all the problems with modern Irish urban and regional planning. Here is a review of the book taken from another website, http://varnelis.net/blog/kazys/chaos_at_the_crossroads .

"Chaos at the Crossroads

I was at the University of Limerick School of Architecture this weekend. Browsing in the airport bookstore on the way back, I found a copy of Chaos at the Crossroads by Frank McDonald and James Nix and picked it up. Having read about half of it thus far, my first impression is that not only is this an excellent analysis of the exurban sprawl that is taking over the Irish landscape, it would be a remarkable work for any country. McDonald and Nix marshall a huge amount of statistics in their effort—did you know the Irish drive their cars more than Americans do? or that 30% of the housing stock in Ireland has been built since 1990?—and paint an apocalyptic vision of Dublin growing to the size of Los Angeles with 1/3 the population. Unlike anti-modern luddites in the US, McDonald and Nix aren't afraid of contemporary architecture and instead see it as playing a crucial role in building a network of dense modern cities to counteract the drive to the one-off freestanding McMansion. Also worth noting are the copious photographs of both villains and heroes in the struggle over the Irish landscape today."

Inge Binge

Irish people never complain - it's the "I'm ok..." culture even if they boil in anger. Have found out this. :v:

So you think they go to change this because a single little alien is complaining?

And THX for the book - I'll try to get it!

IB

billy the squid

limerick_man wrote:

WHAT?? The new Raheen service is in trouble they have upped prices again to try and cover the costs since christmas i've gotten on that bus in the city twice and been the only one (or with my friend so the only 2 that time). And I've only been in the city like 5 times in the past two weeks!
Umm.. Billy, if people are living in the city, then they dont need public stransport to get there!!! Dublin is a prime example of urban spralling gone wrong!

The prices on public transport are nationwide. they have gone up by 3 percent everywhere. dublin cork galway and limerick. it has nothing to do with the running cost of the raheen service.

I have lost count of the times that the raheen bus has passed me by at the bus stop because it was full.

Also they are after screwing up the greenfields route as well. for one to go from greenfields to town you have to go out to raheen first.

limerick_man

Yeah, all the new buses that Raheen has gotten are older ones from what i am guessing council housing areas (thats me being pc!) that are terrible, seats torn off, you can see where they tried to clean off where ppl got markers to them, really awful buses!!!
In fact the new service is turning me off a little, sitting on an empty bus is a little creepy, plus the state of the bus, i dunno why... its just the feeling of a hit or miss whether you'll get a nice bus or not, the vandilised buses are depressing!!
They put the price up just before they launched the new Raheen service, and now not 3 months later its up again!!
The servie is great, if you miss a bus just wait a minute and another will come.. but they should get new buses, put up more timetables and get new buses!!!

Inge Binge

As you mention timetable: what use is it to have a timetable at, let's say, the crescent shopping center showing the times when the buses leaving brown thomas?

IB

limerick_man

yeah, but induvidualised bus stop timetables, come on.. your from outside this backwards little country, just put the estimated time that the bus will stop there, at all bus stops. Oh, and for all routes...like where buses are running to Croom, Rathkeale...and places have that timetable up too.

Inge Binge

but you could have at least a schematic line with the minutes between the main stops like

brown thomas

---

10

---

crescent

---

3

---

hospital

---

3

---

raheen

or so...

IB