Limerick improvement projects

MrJones2013

Vanquished wrote: »

That's the point. It's just going to encourage more car commuting and if you don't own a car you're at a distinct disadvantage. I'm not sure how reliable the bus service is on the Caherdavin route but in order to make inter campus movement in any way feasible LIT will have to lay on a shuttle service from Moylish. The long promised Ennis Road and Thomondgate green routes/bus lanes seem to be going nowhere fast. We really need to show more urgency on infrastructural projects like this in order to make public transport more popular and usable.

If it's anything like the other routes its probably as reliable as the Irish weather.

Vanquished wrote: »

That's the point. It's just going to encourage more car commuting and if you don't own a car you're at a distinct disadvantage. I'm not sure how reliable the bus service is on the Caherdavin route but in order to make inter campus movement in any way feasible LIT will have to lay on a shuttle service from Moylish. The long promised Ennis Road and Thomondgate green routes/bus lanes seem to be going nowhere fast. We really need to show more urgency on infrastructural projects like this in order to make public transport more popular and usable.

Have to agree with you on this, the public transport in Limerick, there is nothing to entice people to use it. I drive regularly but would rather hop on a bus but the quality and reliability of the service puts me back in the car.

Limerick is the Irelands Smarter Travel 'Demonstration City' however they just seem more intent on popping cycle lanes everywhere rather than improving the public transport service. Why not introduce buses with bike racks like below so you can cycle to the bus stop, pop your bike on the bus and cycle to your final destination after you get off the bus.

zulutango

Anybody know when the upgrade to the towpath between the Park Canal and Plassey is due to finish?

Vanquished

zulutango wrote: »

Anybody know when the upgrade to the towpath between the Park Canal and Plassey is due to finish?

It was due to finish in May but with the dodgy weather it's been put back until June/July.

Townie_P

Cookiemunster wrote: »

On reading more of the LIT development plans I see that there are a few city center developments planned.

Irish Fashion Incubator Limerick - (IFIL)
A currently vacant retail premises is being purchased, and will be
re-purposed as a City Centre Education and Enterprise Incubation
Hub, with IFIL as the primary occupant of the building

LSAD Quadrangle
Building on the proven international success of the School of Art
and Design (LSAD) this project will create a series of 15 additional
learning, social and civic spaces which will bring new life to a
collection of century-old protected buildings


Food Development / Tourism, Hospitality & Culinary Arts
This innovative scheme will incorporate: new teaching kitchens,
multiple teaching spaces, a Research Centre for Tourism and
Hospitality including product development, a food and nutrition
laboratory. This facility will create a new food orientated destination
for the city centre.

Student Accommodation
The design will provide a home from home for Limerick based
Higher Education students in a new city settlement. The project
consists of study bedrooms designed for a wide range of students,
from fresher to postgraduate and international.

The last 2 seem to be in the Opera Center, but aren't due till after 2020.

Anyone who thinks they are ignoring the city center by expanding to Coonagh needs to read the document. I'd suggest someone from An Taisce read it too.

All that has the whiff of tokenism off it to be fair. Bits and bobs here and there, but that's not what the city centre needs. The city centre needs an actual substantial campus, the real deal basically.

Isn't Coonagh Cross on a flood plain, or am I mistaken? If it is there should be zero development approved for there.

There are sites available in the city that would be suitable as mentioned already. Another area that's ripe for development is the junction between Ballinacurra Road/Childers Road/Rosbrien Road which is across the way from Punches Hotel. Aside from Lidl and the Ballinacurra SC, most of that fairly substantial site is available for development. Punches Hotel itself could be purchased and developed in to a student village and there's also huge space behind the hotel as well that could potentially be purchased. There's even more land lying idle all around that general area. And all just a 10 minute stroll in to town. The possibilities are there, they just don't want to do it or haven't looked in to it properly.

zulutango

Townie_P wrote: »

Isn't Coonagh Cross on a flood plain, or am I mistaken? If it is there should be zero development approved for there.

It is indeed. It's a Category A risk according to the An Taisce submission.

https://antaiscelimerick.wordpress.com/

Townie_P wrote: »

There's even more land lying idle all around that general area. And all just a 10 minute stroll in to town. The possibilities are there, they just don't want to do it or haven't looked in to it properly.

Yep, the city centre is full of vacant or derelict land. That whole area around the market especially.

jbkenn

This An Taisce objection to the LIT development strikes me as a nitpicking exercise by well intentioned people with time on their hands and a laudable agenda to develop the city centre, regardless of the cost.
A couple of points, I have lived in the area for 36 years and in that time I have not witnessed any flooding issue's, I am sure that the public transport concerns could be easily addressed, parking etc., in fact all these concerns can be easily addressed.
The site in Coonagh is in NAMA, so the long suffering taxpayer is saddled with it anyway, the structure is largely complete and will lead to substantial construction cost savings and a more rapid time to delivery of the project than any of the proposed city centre alternatives.

Townie_P

jbkenn wrote: »

I have lived in the area for 36 years and in that time I have not witnessed any flooding issue's

Well if you want to witness flooding there for the first time, keep building on flood plains. Plenty of examples lately of places flooding that never flooded before.

Mr.H

Townie_P wrote: »

Well if you want to witness flooding there for the first time, keep building on flood plains. Plenty of examples lately of places flooding that never flooded before.

Not as much of an issue as people make it out to be. The only objection to new builds is taking business from other part of the city ie: Parkway valley taking Crescent customers


Flood plains can be moved/altered and created. Digging purpose built "reservoirs" along they river which can be filled/unfilled with dams is the best way to help release pressure on the river.

For example if we bought a plot of land a few hundred acres, we could dig down a few hundred meters. The land doesnt even have to be right beside the river. Build man made rivers to divert the water and only allow the water in (through a dam system) when the river is high.

If we had a few sites like that along the river it would surely help.

zulutango

The flood risk is a valid grounds for objection but really the bigger one is the damage that this kind of development does to the long term vitality of the city. It's common sense and proven time and time again that if you promote development like this on the outer edge of city you kill the city over time. This has been happening in Limerick for nearly 50 years and LIT's proposal is just a continuation of this kind of bad planning.

johnnyryan89

Townie_P wrote: »

All that has the whiff of tokenism off it to be fair. Bits and bobs here and there, but that's not what the city centre needs. The city centre needs an actual substantial campus, the real deal basically.

It's still more than what the UL have proposed for the city centre though. I'm sure LIT could develop a campus at Coonagh Cross and even one in the city centre. The council own the Cleeves site and they could easily ask LIT to develop theses bits and bobs here and there ideas at somewhere like the Cleeves site and still use Coonagh Cross and move their sports facilities out there which frees up a lot of space at Moylish to develop that campus.

Cookiemunster

zulutango wrote: »

The flood risk is a valid grounds for objection but really the bigger one is the damage that this kind of development does to the long term vitality of the city. It's common sense and proven time and time again that if you promote development like this on the outer edge of city you kill the city over time. This has been happening in Limerick for nearly 50 years and LIT's proposal is just a continuation of this kind of bad planning.

Simple question. Would you have the same issue if they were building this on their existing campus?

zulutango

Cookiemunster wrote:

Simple question. Would you have the same issue if they were building this on their existing campus?

No. It's in a developed area. While not in the centre of the city it's not on the very edge either.

phog

Townie_P wrote: »

Well if you want to witness flooding there for the first time, keep building on flood plains. Plenty of examples lately of places flooding that never flooded before.

I remember flooding on lower Cecil St but with flood barriers installed it hasn't flooded in years. Should we be planning to move the city?

Cookiemunster

zulutango wrote: »

No. It's in a developed area. While not in the centre of the city it's not on the very edge either.

Well we'll have to disagree then. As far as I'm concerned as the building is already there, it's a developed area. Plus when it comes to the sports pitches and facilities there's no choice but to go to the edge of the city.

zulutango

Cookiemunster wrote: »

Well we'll have to disagree then. As far as I'm concerned as the building is already there, it's a developed area.

Let's say, down the line, they've developed the campus. Would you permit more development further out then?

Cookiemunster

zulutango wrote: »

Let's say, down the line, they've developed the campus. Would you permit more development further out then?

I assume you mean the Coonagh Campus. I'd like to see LIT (and UL) move more into the city center before developing Coonagh any further than the current plan for the engineering facility and the sports facilities.
But as I said already, I don't see an issue with them expanding into an already built, but derelict building, which isn't that far from their main campus and which is probably the only nearby location suitable for the sports facilities.

zulutango

Cookiemunster wrote: »

I assume you mean the Coonagh Campus. I'd like to see LIT (and UL) move more into the city center before developing Coonagh any further than the current plan for the engineering facility and the sports facilities.

It sounds like you agree that too much development on the edge of the city is not a good thing, but you're ok with the scale of LIT's plan? If it was a bit bigger you'd be against it?

Cookiemunster

zulutango wrote: »

It sounds like you agree that too much development on the edge of the city is not a good thing, but you're ok with the scale of LIT's plan? If it was a bit bigger you'd be against it?

Pretty much. It's just in this instance they aren't building a new development, just repurposing an existing one. If they were actually developing a new campus on a greenfield site outside the city I'd be totally against it.

zulutango

Cookiemunster wrote: »

Pretty much. It's just in this instance they aren't building a new development, just repurposing an existing one. If they were actually developing a new campus on a greenfield site outside the city I'd be totally against it.

Why would you be totally against it if they were proposing a new campus on a greenfield site?

Cookiemunster

zulutango wrote: »

Why would you be totally against it if they were proposing a new campus on a greenfield site?

In general I agree with you that new developments, where possible, should be focused in the city center, so I would be against them building something on a greenfield site at the edge of the city. They reason I don't have an issue with this one is that the building is already there and they're co locating it with the sporting facilities.

pigtown

I agree with Cookiemunster. Ideally the college wouldn't expand away from the city but this location is close to the existing campus, and it would bring life to a derelict eyesore.

On a related note, the University of Ulster in Jordanstown, outside Belfast, are close to finishing their relocation project. They are moving almost 15,000 students and staff to a new £250 million campus in Belfast city centre. Granted their existing campus needed an upgrade anyway so the money would have been spent either way, but it shows that colleges can move wholesale in to city centres.

Vanquished

At long last we appear to have the first signs of some activity at the former opera site.

UL have plans in for a "health hub" at the old Town Hall. It may actually be the adjoining building at the corner of the laneway.

Applicant name: University of Limerick

Development Description: a change of use from restaurant to use as a Health Hub and to carry out associated internal alterations which includes the demolition of the existing mezzanine level, kitchen and toilets and the construction of a toilet pod in the northern side of the ground floor (this is a protected structure RPS 014)

Development Address: Old Town Hall, Rutland Street

zulutango

Vanquished wrote: »

At long last we appear to have the first signs of some activity at the former opera site.

UL have plans in for a "health hub" at the old Town Hall. It may actually be the adjoining building at the corner of the laneway.

No, I think it's the old town hall. That was a restaurant (The Green Onion) and it had a mezzanine level. It would be the left hand side of the building (as you look from the street).

Very good news indeed.

Vanquished

I didn't know there was a restaurant in the old town hall. I remember the Italian next door alright. Fat Zoes I think. Looking back it was a ridiculously rash decision to turf all those businesses out before planning permission had even been secured for the doomed shopping complex.

This application is a positive development anyway as the old town hall is the most significant building on the terrace. Both architecturally and in terms of size. It should be suitable for a number of additional uses too.

zulutango

Yes, Fat Zoe's was the one on the corner, beside the laneway. The Green Onion was on one side of the building and the Limerick Post offices on the other in more recent years and it was the old Mayor's Office before that.

Vanquished

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/90m-development-is-shape-of-things-to-come-for-cork-city-383629.html

This is the type of private sector investment and development that we badly require in Limerick if we are going to be competitive in attracting new business to the city.

That project is just one of a number of large schemes that are getting underway this year. They've got out of the blocks very quickly while in contrast we're still talking about various masterplans and rehashing press releases.

Progress and actions are needed. Not more waffle!

Cookiemunster

http://waterfordwhispersnews.com/2016/02/24/e200-billion-development-planned-for-limerick-city/

Vanquished

unveiling a series of plans for the aptly named ‘Limerick 3,000’ project.

I wonder where they could've possibly got the inspiration for that from?!

zulutango

The Chamber of Commerce are hosting an event in a few weeks - Reimagining and Rejuverating Limerick City Centre

"As the Greater Limerick Region shows strong signs of recovery with numerous positive announcements, it is imperative that the City Centre feels the effects of this recovery and the infamous "donut effect" is reversed.

While there are numerous stakeholders that each have to play thier part, we as the business community must lead the charge and demand more of others to ensure the full rejuvenation of the City in line with our 2030 plan.
Dr Lisa O Malley will paint a picture and facilitate debate on the night to establish what the business community can do to make this happen and kick off the Limerick Chamber retail and hospitaility strategy.

Dr Lisa O'Malley is Head of the Department of Management & Marketing and Research in the University of Limerick. With over twenty years of experience as an academic in the UK and Ireland, Lisa has a reputation for excellence in research and teaching and will show examples of other Cities that have been through similar processes and how they managed it."

link to event page

So, the key question is, how do we reverse the donut!?

zulutango

I wonder, given the election result, will a lot of these projects happen at all. A lot of them were being driven by Noonan and O'Sullivan and they're unlikely to have a senior role in the next Dáil. Neither is Maurice Quinlivan, and Willie O'Dea isn't the kind of politician (rightly or wrongly) who supports these kind of projects.

I'm hoping that the ridiculous footbridge project gets pulled anyway, but it would be disappointing if the the Opera Centre, Cleeves, Hanging Gardens, etc were stalled further.