240 Bed Student Accommodation In Westside

The current Higgins site is worth more than any profits the store would make in 20+ years. I think its a no brainer than it will close in a couple of years and get developed.

Retail is not very profitable in today's market, setting up a new hardware store has so much upfront cost due to the foot print required (land and buildings) you,d never pay it back in your lifetime. Hence Higgins and McDonaghs survive today as they own the land and building, and the business has been in the families for a centuary or more. Plus they owned half of Galway city at some stage, so plenty of old money there. Apart from B&Q, who has set up a hardware store in Galway in the past 40 years?

I think Chadwicks is there for decades. It used to be called something else before it was aquired by the Grafton group around 20 years ago. I think I can remember my father going in there when I was a child and me with him ... a long time ago.

From the internet "Brooks Galway is one of Ireland's longest-established builders' merchants, with origins tracing back to the late 1700s".

Point I was making is that if Higgins sell their site, there is no suitable or affordable site west of the city that they can move to, they'd have to move 10-20km out to the east or south (tuam rd, dublin rd, limerick rd) to find a suitable economical site.

I'm pretty sure its always been the plan for that clinic to move to Westside. (No idea if Westside is finished yet, though.)

It is reassuring to see planning decisions pushing through without folding to NIMBYism.

what will they be chatting about? posted on site boundary

any updates zell12 on this meeting?

Building could be structurally put together by the time a Committee is formed I reckon. 2nd floor is being installed this week and is flying up. It's like looking at a GIANT LEGO been assembled. I think the brick render finish on it looks good as well TBH.

Why not demonlish the Westside shopping centre, build a tall structure in its place. Ground floor can be shop units like now, the floors above can be accomidation. Appreciate shops like Dunnes may never return there.

Parking Will be a major problem. Already hard to get parking for shopping at the front and rear of Dunnes. A lot of students have cars as well, plus the accomidation staff eg. Security, housing managers, cleaners, maintainence vans, etc.

What would handling it well look like?

Because your garage, sun room, or porch don't help address the societal need for accommodation.

I'm not denying that we badly need student accommidation. We need it, and other forms of accomidation units for working people. Take the University if Limerick, they built a bridge across the Shannon, aquired farm land across the Shannon behind the University campus, and built a student village, with lots more land there to expand in the future. Can you imagine if a developer got approval to build high rise student housing in the carpark of the Parkway shopping centre, an old 80's shopping centre around 2 miles from UL, home to Dunnes stores.

And not people who tera their passports up on planes coming into this country.

Thank you.

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The city has to seriously consider knocking our old low level factory type structures like the Westside shopping centre or the commerical units across from it (hairdresser, asian shop, carpet shop, etc). Built up, ensure consistant designs all surrounding buildings.

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Agree with this. Add the ALDI site to that list. Underground car park that's NOT used here as well.
Headford Road/Terryland area is a PRIME example of this very low sprawl Commercial. Will be more mixed into the future.

Wouldn't have to force people. Just have rates based on land value only and then you will get people looking to build up to spread the rate cost. Strong encouragement….