Elysian Tower grows in stature as builders put down 13th storey

STREAKING up through Cork skyline towards its €1 million penthouses at five metres a day, the Elysian Tower is making rapid strides in its race to be Ireland’s tallest building.

Raising its profile at a rate of a floor a day, construction staff were yesterday working on the 13th storey of the structure’s lift shaft. Work is expected to be finished on the entire building sometime around the middle of 2008.

The lift shaft section of the tower’s 18-storey structure should be complete by Christmas.

“It’s rising at the level of a floor a day and at the moment it’s undergoing 24-hour construction,” a spokesperson for developers O’Flynn Construction said yesterday.

“It’s happening in the core of the building but it’s an impressive sight as people passing it every day can see.”

When complete, the main tower will stand at 71 metres in height and the rate of construction on the lift shaft is approaching five metres per day.

The Elysian was designed by Wilson Architects and O’Flynn Construction secured planning permission for the landmark scheme last year.

Along with the central tower, which will be about five metres taller than Cork’s County Hall, the project includes a number of six and eight-storey buildings as part of the three-acre development.

Located at the old An Post site, the €150 million development is bounded by Eglinton Street, Old Station Road and Albert Road.

It will house a number of ground-floor retail units as well as offices, a crèche, a gym, and 214 apartments varying in size from 600 to 2,400 square feet.

During the planning phase, estimates suggested that the apartments could range in price from about €350,000 for the smallest units in the tower up to €1m for the top-floor penthouses.

The finished project will include landscaped gardens, seating areas and water features.

The site was bought from An Post for €15m. Excavation work for a two-storey underground car-park, including 553 parking spaces, has already taken place.

The Elysian will be taller than Dublin’s Liberty Hall when finished, but its status as Ireland’s highest building is expected to be short-lived as it will probably be surpassed by skyscraper development in the Dublin docklands.