Historic street set for €10m revamp

CORK’S historic Grand Parade is to be transformed as part of a €10 million facelift.

The street, home to one of the city's greatest tourist attractions, the English Market, the city library and the peace park, will become a vast pedestrian-friendly plaza within two years.

The final architectural drawings are not yet complete. A spokesperson for Catalan architect Beth Gali, who designed the city's €13.5 million St Patrick's Street revamp, will present her final vision for Grand Parade to city council in September.

But council engineers said yesterday the street will have the same theme, but a different function, to the St Patrick's Street design.

Project manager John Stapleton said the area could become the new gathering place for the people of Cork. "St Patrick's Street is Cork's main shopping street. This area is different," he said.

"The landscaping will provide an ideal location for outdoor events, like homecomings or concerts for example."

The area was transformed recently into an outdoor theatre space for a performance of Victor Frankenstein, as part of Corcadorca's Cork 2005 Relocation events.

The new Grand Parade's key features will include: widened footpaths; vast paved open public spaces, especially around the National Monument; dozens of new benches; in-floor lighting; and the same type of street lamps which sparked controversy when they were installed on St Patrick's Street.

Talks are ongoing about installing a stepped boardwalk along the river at the southern end of the street.

The War Memorial park at the southern end will also be enhanced.

The low trees will be removed and new paved areas installed to make the area more attractive.

The Berwick Fountain will be temporarily removed during construction, restored by expert stone conservators. It will be replaced in the same location and will be enhanced with feature lighting to become a focal point on the street.

Traffic lanes will be reduced to three lanes, parking will be removed from the centre of the street, extra disabled parking spaces will be provided on Tuckey Street and up to 10 taxi spaces will be provided. Bus stops will remain.

Engineers hope to award the contract for the revamp works in October.

Construction could take up to two years and is likely to cause severe disruption to businesses in the area.

But Mr Stapleton said work would not start until the second week of January 2006 after the sales. Work will stop for Christmas 2006.

Traffic flows will be maintained while work is ongoing, he said.

It's expected the first phase of work will take place on the eastern, or English Market side of the street.