Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

Massive development planned for east of Athlone

24

Comments

  • Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 10,550 Mod ✭✭✭✭Robbo


    Why can't I get rid of the image of Mary O'Rourke with a lampshade on her head and a Chinese investor peering in the window at her, like in Father Ted?

    The Chinese, a great bunch of lads.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,809 ✭✭✭CerebralCortex


    Why the hell would you put something like that in Athlone?


  • Registered Users Posts: 12,815 ✭✭✭✭galwayrush


    Why the hell would you put something like that in Athlone?

    Probably something to do with the people who paid way too much for the land in the first place.:rolleyes: Guess their investment is now immune from the effects of the property crash.;)

    Perhaps labour costs are lower in Athlone compared to China.:pac:


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,735 ✭✭✭Irish and Proud


    Let's file this next to Offaly International airport and the Tipperary Superbowl arena.

    ...buy maybe such off the wall proposals are fronts to distract from other controversial developments in the relevant localities!


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 7,102 ✭✭✭Stinicker


    Robbo wrote: »
    Why can't I get rid of the image of Mary O'Rourke with a lampshade on her head and a Chinese investor peering in the window at her, like in Father Ted?

    The Chinese, a great bunch of lads.

    Those Chinese, I tells ya, they worked like blacks.


  • Advertisement


  • Sure! they can all fly into Arklow International airport :rolleyes:

    http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0625/1224273271194.html
    PLANS FOR an international airport near Arklow have been given an enthusiastic welcome by members of Wicklow County Council.

    The proposals, backed by businessman Pascal Taggart, envisage the development on a site – as yet unspecified – of about 600 acres south of Arklow town.

    Why do we provide English comedians with so much material! :rolleyes:

    facepalm1.jpg


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,818 ✭✭✭donvito99


    i have seen plans for this and have to confirm that it is very real. Although, i still cant see it happening. the buildings themselves look ridiculous!


  • Registered Users Posts: 19,015 ✭✭✭✭murphaph


    I'm still trying to figure out exactly what is being proposed here!




  • murphaph wrote: »
    I'm still trying to figure out exactly what is being proposed here!

    My best guess is that a group of speculators have acquired large areas of land to the east of the town and are trying to "sell" it as a future Chinatown, as in an area where Chinese enterprises can establish new business.

    Whether the Chinese really want anything to do with it or not, is another story.


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 454 ✭✭KindOfIrish


    "Local developers paid €50m for the land at Creggan during the Celtic Tiger peak and, given the property crash, are keen to see the ambitious plan take off."

    This is the key to the issue. The land probably cost no more than 5 million at the moment. Somebody wants to help a friend.:D


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,093 ✭✭✭Amtmann


    Can't help but feel that something of this scale should go to Cork, Limerick or Galway rather than Athlone (no offence to Athlone).


  • Registered Users Posts: 28,039 ✭✭✭✭drunkmonkey


    It needs to go to a Port area, something like they have in Naples where goods can be manufactured with cheap labour and sent all over the world.

    Does athlone have a port?


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,517 ✭✭✭veryangryman


    Furet wrote: »
    Can't help but feel that something of this scale should go to Cork, Limerick or Galway rather than Athlone (no offence to Athlone).

    Plenty of offence taken! :mad: Only messing :D

    Athlone has many advantages over the other 3 though...

    1) Cheaper
    2) More central
    3) Closer to Dublin, while (already mentioned) much cheaper

    Lets say (maye pie in sky so wont list this as an adv for now) that this plus airport in Offaly built. Surely the town and its environs will balloon in population . The 10K lampshade jobs will make hundreds if not thousands more jobs in services, expaning the college and other facilities in the area and thus long-term making Athlone into a city perhaps the size of Waterford.

    Again its all very ambitious right now, so i do say it with a pinch of salt


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,517 ✭✭✭veryangryman


    To the tune of the Wimax ad...


    Athlone.. the new destination
    Check out the Chinese checkin into the station
    Athlone, next generation
    Nearer, cheaper centraller, no big bad cit-ee
    For more information, see boards.ie! :D


  • Registered Users Posts: 19,015 ✭✭✭✭murphaph


    This sounds indeed like yomeone got burned as is now trying to offload the land onto some unsuspecting Chinese. What these gombeens don't seem to realise is that the Chinese are not a stupid bunch of people, who happily overvalue land and pay for it through the nose.

    If a Chinese hub is to be built anywhere in Europe, with the aim of manufacturing for Europe, they will 100% build it in continental Europe, near to good road and rail infrastructure (Czech Republic, for example). They will NOT build it on an island off the coast of Europe where they still have to pay to get their goods "overseas" to the market. The Irish domestic market is totally insignificant to Chinese manufacturers.

    None of this stacks up really. The competitive advantage we had at the start of the Celtic Tiger is gone: Cheap labour, english speaking, low tax. All these things can be replicated now in the former communist states which were seen as far too risky just after the fall of the Iron Curtain. That is now resolved and places like the Czech Republic are stable, have cheap labour, excellent transport links, the young people can speak enough English to work on a production line. The engineers etc. will speak good English. We are just too expensive for this carry on...we need to reduce our labour costs or we'll sink into oblivion.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 7,102 ✭✭✭Stinicker


    murphaph wrote: »
    This sounds indeed like yomeone got burned as is now trying to offload the land onto some unsuspecting Chinese. What these gombeens don't seem to realise is that the Chinese are not a stupid bunch of people, who happily overvalue land and pay for it through the nose.

    If a Chinese hub is to be built anywhere in Europe, with the aim of manufacturing for Europe, they will 100% build it in continental Europe, near to good road and rail infrastructure (Czech Republic, for example). They will NOT build it on an island off the coast of Europe where they still have to pay to get their goods "overseas" to the market. The Irish domestic market is totally insignificant to Chinese manufacturers.

    None of this stacks up really. The competitive advantage we had at the start of the Celtic Tiger is gone: Cheap labour, english speaking, low tax. All these things can be replicated now in the former communist states which were seen as far too risky just after the fall of the Iron Curtain. That is now resolved and places like the Czech Republic are stable, have cheap labour, excellent transport links, the young people can speak enough English to work on a production line. The engineers etc. will speak good English. We are just too expensive for this carry on...we need to reduce our labour costs or we'll sink into oblivion.

    Aren't the Chinese building a railway to Europe so they can bring their goods to market by Rail and vis a vis supply the East coast of the US Carribbean and South Eastern South America by reducing time spent at sea with rail to Europe and sea freight from Cherbourg.




  • Stinicker wrote: »
    Aren't the Chinese building a railway to Europe so they can bring their goods to market by Rail and vis a vis supply the East coast of the US Carribbean and South Eastern South America by reducing time spent at sea with rail to Europe and sea freight from Cherbourg.

    Probably! The only thing the Chinese will be building in Europe is a distribution network and outlets for manufactured (in China) goods.

    They are in the process of securing supplies of oil and land to suit the homeland. They have recently bought complete oil reserves in situ to prevent that oil ever reaching the open market. they now own huge tracts of land for the production of food for domestic consumption as well.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 7,102 ✭✭✭Stinicker


    Probably! The only thing the Chinese will be building in Europe is a distribution network and outlets for manufactured (in China) goods.

    They are in the process of securing supplies of oil and land to suit the homeland. They have recently bought complete oil reserves in situ to prevent that oil ever reaching the open market. they now own huge tracts of land for the production of food for domestic consumption as well.

    Indeed they have been buying up Farmland in New Zealand at an frightening pace, and not sparing money either which is leading Kiwis to sell even more.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 25,234 ✭✭✭✭Sponge Bob


    In Galway we now know Athlone as Wrong Kong


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 5,309 ✭✭✭dowlingm


    murphaph wrote: »
    This sounds indeed like yomeone got burned as is now trying to offload the land onto some unsuspecting Chinese. What these gombeens don't seem to realise is that the Chinese are not a stupid bunch of people, who happily overvalue land and pay for it through the nose.
    A real estate agent in Vancouver might tell you otherwise :D




  • dowlingm wrote: »
    A real estate agent in Vancouver might tell you otherwise :D

    One off special deal for Hong Kong Chinese to had to escape leave before 1997, they were rich and able to set up a community near home.

    The only real comparison Athlone has with Vancouver is spare (overpriced) land.


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,309 ✭✭✭dowlingm


    One off special deal for Hong Kong Chinese to had to escape leave before 1997, they were rich and able to set up a community near home.
    Yeah right, still coming thirteen years later?
    Vancouver house prices stay robust
    Business reporter and Financial Post/Postmedia October 6, 2010

    Average house prices in the Vancouver area are set to reach record heights this year as Chinese investors drive luxury sales, Re/Max said Tuesday.

    The average house price in the area, while down from its peak in April, remains 16 per cent higher than 2009 levels, the real-estate firm said in a new report.

    Prices are hovering at $667,227, up from $574,061 a year ago, Re/Max said.

    Real-estate values are predicted to stay steady in coming months as fewer new listings arrive and current resale properties are absorbed, the report said.

    "While the number of homes sold by year-end may be off 2009 levels, average price is poised to set a new record in the Greater Vancouver area in 2010," the report said.

    The luxury end of the local market remains robust, it said.

    "Wealthy Chinese immigrants are driving luxury sales, bolstered by China's strong economy, and this phenomenon is expected to continue into 2011," it said.


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,171 ✭✭✭1huge1


    Ah so, how many months on, any word on this?




  • 1huge1 wrote: »
    Ah so, how many months on, any word on this?
    Still up there on cloud nine waiting for permission to land!


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 558 ✭✭✭OurLadyofKnock


    I had to laugh when this whole idea was first mentioned. The local gombeens must of been of steroids when they came up with this one.

    Only in Ireland!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,549 ✭✭✭✭Judgement Day


    Maybe they can power the whole place with a couple of those duff Japanese reactors. :rolleyes:


  • Registered Users Posts: 12,815 ✭✭✭✭galwayrush


    My guess was that some FF hack needed to sell a lot of land he paid too much for and is now ****ed because FF are out of office. Something on a smaller scale happened in Donegal and a certain minister managed to get Uduras na Gaeltach to buy some seriously price inflated land for no practical reason.


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 4,917 Mod ✭✭✭✭spacetweek


    Yea, I re-read the OP's post (from June 2010) and my eyes rolled. Cowen pushing urban sprawl in the midlands.... thank god we kicked those crooks out.

    Athlone could do with some consolidation. The tiger was not kind to the place, in Google Maps it looks like someone dropped a town from a height.


  • Advertisement


  • spacetweek wrote: »
    Athlone could do with some consolidation. The tiger was not kind to the place, in Google Maps it looks like someone dropped a town from a height.

    True, there are several "dead spaces" near the centre that could benefit from some sympathetic development, as in some decent town housing.


Advertisement