R & H Hall Building

Bards

AT long last The R & H Hall Building on the North Wharf owned by IAWS, has been sold to McInerney Builders and an English Development Company. The plan on developing the site with a high density project / mixed use devlopment AKA Hotel and/or appartments.

Dilbert75

+: Good to get rid of those eyesores
-: Great, just what Wfd needs - more appartments

Trotter

Does that include the old grain silos?? I heard a rumour thats theres still old rotten grain in them that has actually gone dangerous, so it'll take specialists to remove it.

Id so prefer if they levelled all of it and built something really groundbreaking there. Imagine something like the point depot or a multi purpose indoor sports arena with a conference centre and a little courtyard with restaurants and a couple of bars.

Or more apartments.. silly me putting social development before the big bucks so someone can buy another merc.

Cabaal

Trotter wrote:

Id so prefer if they levelled all of it and built something really groundbreaking there. Imagine something like the point depot or a multi purpose indoor sports arena with a conference centre and a little courtyard with restaurants and a couple of bars.

Or more apartments.. silly me putting social development before the big bucks so someone can buy another merc.

Agreed it would be nice, however I bet good odds that they'll built apartments

Victor

Wow, people might have somewhere to live! and colonise the Kilkenny side

Cabaal

Victor wrote:

Wow, people might have somewhere to live! and colonise the Kilkenny side

Have you actually been in Waterford recently?
The place is full of apartments with more being finished every other week, I'd go as far to say that they haven't enough people to fill these apartments.

O'Connell street area is a joke its so full of apartments and it ruins the area AND this all coming from the view of a Kilkenny person

merlante

Cabaal wrote:

Have you actually been in Waterford recently?
The place is full of apartments with more being finished every other week, I'd go as far to say that they haven't enough people to fill these apartments.

O'Connell street area is a joke its so full of apartments and it ruins the area AND this all coming from the view of a Kilkenny person

What kind of madness is this? Waterford is the only place in the world where people complain about too many apartments! :eek:

O'Connell street/Mary St. etc. were full of rotting old buildings, now there are apartments. So what if you don't like them, you can't seriously suggest that this area was better before??

In Waterford now, apartments are numerous and cheap to rent, what the hell is wrong with that? I went to college in Dublin in the mid-nineties, and the most you'd get was a dingy, mold-infested, 70's decorated rat-hole in a house that was divided in to 54 rooms so the all powerful landlord could squeeze even more students in. And you'd have to compete with 5 other students for that room! I know (then) students in Waterford who lived in awful conditions around the same time. Now there are plenty of places to live in Waterford and all people can do is bitch! :mad:

Can people not be even a teeny bit happy, or god forbid, proud, (?) about how far the city has come? Waterford is possibly the most attractive city in Ireland at the moment, but when I was growing up there it was a total kip. The height of culture was drinking behind the cow sheds, the centre was choked with cars, the shops were ****, there were no resturaunts and the whole place was rotting from the inside out. Anything would have been an improvement, including bulldozing most of the city.

Bards

I agree that appartments are better than the dereliction that was there before, but I also have to agree that too many appartments are being built without thought for other infrastructure such as open spaces, Car Parks for the people who are going to live in them. Places to store rubbish bins that are not on the street etc.

Also, the type of appartments that are being built are of the one & two bedroom variety which is mainly used for short term rental for Single people / couples. I don't think (correct me if I'm wrong) that they are encouraging long term rentals such as famalies etc.

The new appartments are nice to look at now, but what happens when they are ten or more years old and need to be maintained. will the investor maintain these or will we end up where we began with more dereliction and decay

Only time will tell.

Marcopolo85

Bards wrote:

I agree that appartments are better than the dereliction that was there before, but I also have to agree that too many appartments are being built without thought for other infrastructure such as open spaces, Car Parks for the people who are going to live in them. Places to store rubbish bins that are not on the street etc.

Also, the type of appartments that are being built are of the one & two bedroom variety which is mainly used for short term rental for Single people / couples. I don't think (correct me if I'm wrong) that they are encouraging long term rentals such as famalies etc.

The new appartments are nice to look at now, but what happens when they are ten or more years old and need to be maintained. will the investor maintain these or will we end up where we began with more dereliction and decay

Only time will tell.

As a Waterford person I think the big mistake that was made was that they didn't widen the street by, say, 6 or 8 feet in some areas (Penrose Lane being a prime example). While the Apartments do look well as opposed to the dereliction, an opportunity was lost to open up the entire area. For example, when builders such as McInerney's on the Willamstown Road, develop a site, a small amount of land is taken in for road widening.

The same should have been done in the City Centre. These 'apartments' themselves do indeed have the potential to become slums in 10 or 15 years.....and then we're right back where we started. :mad:

merlante

Bards wrote:

I agree that appartments are better than the dereliction that was there before, but I also have to agree that too many appartments are being built without thought for other infrastructure such as open spaces, Car Parks for the people who are going to live in them. Places to store rubbish bins that are not on the street etc.

Also, the type of appartments that are being built are of the one & two bedroom variety which is mainly used for short term rental for Single people / couples. I don't think (correct me if I'm wrong) that they are encouraging long term rentals such as famalies etc.

The new appartments are nice to look at now, but what happens when they are ten or more years old and need to be maintained. will the investor maintain these or will we end up where we began with more dereliction and decay

Only time will tell.

Inner city apartments need bugger all infrastructure, that's why cities like to keep people living in the city. I don't know what the story is regarding parking, but do you know for a fact that they are not catered for? And sure if you don't have a car then they'd be fine anyway, and you might even get them cheaper. So what if they are not particularly for long term rentals. Every city has transient areas where people are always moving in and out, it makes for a vibrant area for young people, students, etc.

Why does everyone assume that these apartments will become slums?? When these parts of the city start to be lived in again, the prices will go up, and the buildings might even be rebuilt again to an even higher standard. Just returning areas of urban decay to the people is enough for now, I think. And I don't think they're all that bad anyway.

Why are people so pessimistic? Why assume that these new apartments will be a disaster? The first apartments built in Dublin weren't great at all, but the newest 'generation' of apartments are top notch, in terms of more space, better design, better parking, easier to heat, noise proofed walls, etc. The new apartments in Waterford should be closer to the latter.

I agree with the point that was made about possibly widening the streets around the O' Connell st. area. There was a case for doing that all right.

mike65

Calm down!

Glad to see promise of some development on the North Wharf. Those silos will be very hard to shift, hundreds/thousands (?) of tonnes of concrete in each one.

Mike.

AdMMM

It's going to be a massive investment on McInerney's part. I reckon it's going to be a similar operation to that of the new apartment blocks on the Cork Road by the SEHB buildings, shops on the bottom floor and apartments above it. There is plenty of space for parking there as well!

merlante

Is it part of the north quays project? Does anyone know if anything is happening with the north quays?

Bards

Last I heard was that wexford trawlers owners are seekig a high court injunction to stop the development from going ahead as they want to retain berthing rights on the north wharf.

Trotter

Bards wrote:

Last I heard was that wexford trawlers owners are seekig a high court injunction to stop the development from going ahead as they want to retain berthing rights on the north wharf.

lol.. What a display of chancing their arm!!

Dilbert75

Trotter wrote:

Does that include the old grain silos?? I heard a rumour thats theres still old rotten grain in them that has actually gone dangerous, so it'll take specialists to remove it.

I heard only yesterday that those silos are full of bone meal which will have to be incinerated. Might have to wait until the "waste to energy" facility is built at Belview before they face the bullet... :eek: