City plans €100m Government Quarter
As many as 500 public servants will work from state-of-the art offices to be developed on a prime site stretching from City Hall on The Mall to the courthouse complex on Catherine Street and taking in the former ESB buildings on The Mall, the Waterford City Council site at Bolton Street and the site of the current Waterford City Fire Service headquarters.
Documents and preliminary drawings for the project outline how a series of connected high-quality buildings will transform a triangle in the city centre to create a suite of buildings that will become Waterford’s equivalent to Dublin’s Merrion Square, where Government Buildings are located.
The site will be transformed, subject to planning, to feature a series of modern buildings in keeping with the high-profile, city centre locations involved.
One of the most eye-catching elements of the overall scheme will see the development of office accommodation for Waterford City Council personnel, on the site currently occupied by unused retail and office buildings owned by Bank of Scotland (Ireland), which acquired them as part of a €120m countrywide deal with ESB last year.
Waterford City Council has already begun the process of compulsorily acquiring the old ESB site. The Council already owns two of the three houses to the rear of the ESB site on Bank Lane with a process also now in train to acquire the third.
Waterford City Council needs more offices and its staff are currently preparing to temporarily relocate to privately-rented office accommodation at Maritana Gate on Canada Street.
The Government has already approved a major extension that will almost double capacity at the courthouse complex on Catherine Street and the Courts Service personnel at this location will link into the wider Government Quarter.
Cllr Hilary Quinlan, Mayor of Waterford, previously said “It has been clear for some time that the courthouse in Waterford — though a fine building architecturally — can no longer provide adequate accommodation for people involved in hearings before the courts that sit there and for the judges, Courts Service personnel, gardaí, Probation & Welfare officers and legal professionals who work there”.
A Waterford City Council spokesperson refused to comment on plans for the Mall/Bolton Street/Catherine Street triangle.
