Connolly Station redevelopment

bk

I'm amazed at all the posts from people saying it is crazy to do property development now in a recession, it seems we Irish never learn!

People thinking the current recession will last forever is just as bad as people thinking the property bubble would last forever.

The economy goes in cycles, the current recession will eventually end and there will be again a big demand for office space, specially for very large buildings in a premium city center location like the IFSC.

Dublin in particular is lacking in such large office buildings in such a premium location. So the 50,000 ft of free office space spread out over small locations throughout the county is irrelevant to the likes of a large multinational like Google or Facebook looking to open a massive HQ here.

Now is the perfect time to at least plan for such a future development, ideally you want to be building such projects just at the end of a recession, so that you benefit from cheap land prices, labour and building supplies. Ideally with construction completing in the middle of the upturn so you can sell the property then.

The reason Tara St., Cork, Galway, etc. developments failed, is because they only seemed to get started on them in the middle of the property bubble, rather then be ready with them to sell when the property bubble emerged.

Hasn't anybody in Ireland ever heard of counter cyclical economic policy? Basically you massively reduce development during the good times, hoarding the money instead and taking a little heat out of the economy and then in the bad times you massively increase spending (financed from the money you previously hoarded) to help the economy pick up a little and get the best bang for your buck.

It is this lesson Irish people so badly need to learn, all economies go in cycles.

However I'm not saying this particular project is a good idea or not or arguing that CIE has been far too focused on property development rather then the needs of commuters. I just wanted to make this general point.

dowlingm

bk

I agree with your premise to a large extent - the problem is that planning is timelimited so this works against forward planning. I realise CIE are looking for a longer time horizon here but there may be objections to this by developers who can't claim their buildings as infrastructure.

EDIT: In the case of the M3 trains the intent was that these would start from Navan once completed, freeing up storage in central Dublin. Needless to say we'll be a while waiting for that to happen now!

Victor

Losty Dublin wrote: »

It would have been in an ideal world. But regardless of any land grabbing speculation, there is still practical issues in locating a temporary station around and under a canal basin that's due to be dug under in the mid term.

This seems a bit confused. The canal basin is being left untouched.

Going back a few posts, the need to stable trains at Connolly and indeed Pearse and Heuston will be minimal in the future provided Dart Underground goes ahead. Remember, most trains serving the city will be electried through services to and from Maynooth and Drogheda, sites of proposed service depots for same.

And what happens if you need to fuel or repair a train coming from Belfast or Sligo?

opinion guy

Victor wrote: »

This seems a bit confused. The canal basin is being left untouched.
And what happens if you need to fuel or repair a train coming from Belfast or Sligo?

Get everyone out and push

Losty Dublin

Victor wrote: »

This seems a bit confused. The canal basin is being left untouched.

The canal is untouched but the fact that it is there curtails the space on the ground. Meanwhile, any issues with below surface work would have neeedlessly risked closing off the station where it located there.

Victor wrote: »

And what happens if you need to fuel or repair a train coming from Belfast or Sligo?

Nothing; they are serviced from platform 1 and 2 in the main so there isn't any issue with them. It's Northern, southern and Western railcars that stable in Connolly; most of them will become through services when the tunnel comes to, hence no need for stabling space.

dowlingm

Have just looked at the renderings on SkyscraperCity and compared to Bing Birds Eye.

It's a lot of siding/shed space to lose - more than I expected. I imagine the cleanup on those sites will be massive too given the years of fueling/repair operations. I suppose some of the fueling could be done by Irish Rail North Wall but that's awkward and uses up approaches capacity unless something is done to increase the current 2-trackage parallel to Stoney Road and West Road.

There is an assertion on IRN that one of the buildings will have a shed under it but I can't see it in the published material and unless it was completely IE owned/tenanted I can't imagine the noise being acceptable to tenants above, plus how would that be safe compared to a simple passenger station with no fueling/repair ops?

Moving CTC is probably no small job either, even if done during one of IE's 48 hour shutdowns at Christmas. Add to that - where do the buses go?

IE need to be proactive with their "forward planning" and present an operations plan which envisages maximum utilisation of Connolly in this new configuration - Maynooth DART, hourly Enterprise and so on, including fallback should Interconnector be delayed beyond the time horizon of this development plan. One option could be to do it in two stages - the first only involving the buildings east of Commons Street/Cobourg Street and the current car park until such time as alternative yards etc are commissioned, then do the larger second stage.

Also - 7 storeys max beside Connolly and LUAS and supposedly intended for large single-site property requirements. Be still my beating heart.

DWCommuter

Losty Dublin wrote: »

It would have been in an ideal world. But regardless of any land grabbing speculation, there is still practical issues in locating a temporary station around and under a canal basin that's due to be dug under in the mid term.

From the Treasury Holdings Spencer Dock north implementation framework dated January 2004;

A new surface station accommodating three tracks will be provided on Spencer Dock south site on the Mayor Street Square. The line of the railway tracks run under the existing Sheriff street bridge.

This corresponds with the phasing of construction which states;

The construction is likely to commence to the western side of the site (Spencer Dock north) overlooking the canal. This will allow the construction of the railway line to the east

Since then we got no surface station in Spencer Dock south which would have been better from an integration point of view and the existing station was built in a different place that was originally planned. The canal had nothing to do with it.

DWCommuter

bk wrote: »

I'm amazed at all the posts from people saying it is crazy to do property development now in a recession, it seems we Irish never learn!

People thinking the current recession will last forever is just as bad as people thinking the property bubble would last forever.

The economy goes in cycles, the current recession will eventually end and there will be again a big demand for office space, specially for very large buildings in a premium city center location like the IFSC.

Dublin in particular is lacking in such large office buildings in such a premium location. So the 50,000 ft of free office space spread out over small locations throughout the county is irrelevant to the likes of a large multinational like Google or Facebook looking to open a massive HQ here.

Now is the perfect time to at least plan for such a future development, ideally you want to be building such projects just at the end of a recession, so that you benefit from cheap land prices, labour and building supplies. Ideally with construction completing in the middle of the upturn so you can sell the property then.

The reason Tara St., Cork, Galway, etc. developments failed, is because they only seemed to get started on them in the middle of the property bubble, rather then be ready with them to sell when the property bubble emerged.

Hasn't anybody in Ireland ever heard of counter cyclical economic policy? Basically you massively reduce development during the good times, hoarding the money instead and taking a little heat out of the economy and then in the bad times you massively increase spending (financed from the money you previously hoarded) to help the economy pick up a little and get the best bang for your buck.

It is this lesson Irish people so badly need to learn, all economies go in cycles.

However I'm not saying this particular project is a good idea or not or arguing that CIE has been far too focused on property development rather then the needs of commuters. I just wanted to make this general point.

Yes, as a rule economies go in cycles. However the Irish economy is very different to many others. Our only boom cycle to speak of was based on construction which was unsustainable and did untold damage to our credit reputation

People thinking the current recession will last forever is just as bad as people thinking the property bubble would last forever.

I don't believe it is as bad. I believe its based on the doubts about what will deliver decent and sustainable growth to our economy.

The reason Tara St., Cork, Galway, etc. developments failed, is because they only seemed to get started on them in the middle of the property bubble, rather then be ready with them to sell when the property bubble emerged.

As I alluded to in an earlier post, I believe the failure to redevelop these sites was due to the lack of real commercial drive within CIE.

It is this lesson Irish people so badly need to learn, all economies go in cycles.

Positivity is a good thing, but Irelands economic cycle is very much in its infancy. The real lesson Irish people need to learn should be about consistent single digit growth that is sustainable. Construction isn't. Add to that an absolute rejection of mass development until our planning and legal system has been tailored to make it sound.

bk

DWCommuter wrote: »

Yes, as a rule economies go in cycles. However the Irish economy is very different to many others. Our only boom cycle to speak of was based on construction which was unsustainable and did untold damage to our credit reputation

Sigh, just like what people use to say during the boom times, Irelands economy is different and the good times will last forever.

DWCommuter wrote: »

Positivity is a good thing, but Irelands economic cycle is very much in its infancy. The real lesson Irish people need to learn should be about consistent single digit growth that is sustainable. Construction isn't. Add to that an absolute rejection of mass development until our planning and legal system has been tailored to make it sound.

Agree 100%

DWCommuter

bk wrote: »

Sigh, just like what people use to say during the boom times, Irelands economy is different and the good times will last forever.



Agree 100%

Hmmm...

Forget about anything the so called positive thinkers said during the boom times. Ireland's economy IS different and needs to be treated accordingly. To equate what I said, to assholes who wanted to promote a fantasy, is wrong.

Positivity is a good thing, but Irelands economic cycle is very much in its infancy. The real lesson Irish people need to learn should be about consistent single digit growth that is sustainable. Construction isn't. Add to that an absolute rejection of mass development until our planning and legal system has been tailored to make it sound.

If you agree with this then you have no need to equate my original statement with anything to do with the morons who rode the country to high heaven.

Once again, Ireland's economy IS different and in these times, those that say it can do so amid reality as opposed to the Celtic Tiger mirage that so obviously clouded the thinking of many people.

bk

DWCommuter but the thing is Ireland really isn't different. Irelands economy goes in financial cycles, the same as any other economy.

The difference is why thought we were special and we left a massive bubble develop in our economy which when burst lead to a massive and much more painful recession.

That is completely the opposite of for example the German approach, where they believe in slow steady growth, taking money out of the economy in the good times, so the economy doesn't overheat and pumping money into the economy in the bad times so it doesn't stall.

We should be aiming for the same model as Germany here.

But really I fail to see why Irelands economy is different? Of course there are differences in our economy with Germany (for instance they have a lot of heavy industry), but from a macro economic view, Irelands economy acts the same as every other countries.

Zebra3

Indigenous manufacturing companies are the backbone of the German economy.

Couldn't be more different to here.

bk

Zebra3 wrote: »

Indigenous manufacturing companies are the backbone of the German economy.

Couldn't be more different to here.

Yes of course, and IT, financial services and pharmaceutical are the back bone of the Irish economy. But it doesn't change the fact that they both experience the same macro economic trends.

penexpers

mikemac wrote: »

Fantastic office space at HSQ by Heuston and much of that is vacant.
Eircom have very impressive offices out there

Actually there is very little office space left in HSQ from the looks of things. The Eircom building is completely occupied and the other building is part occupied by AOL. The rest is apartments.

Zebra3

bk wrote: »

Yes of course, and IT, financial services and pharmaceutical are the back bone of the Irish economy. But it doesn't change the fact that they both experience the same macro economic trends.

Indigenous companies don't repatriate their profits though.

Hence the larger than normal difference between GDP and GNP in Ireland.