City Hall opens €35mgreen friendly extension

A €35 MILLION environmentally-friendly extension to Cork’s historic City Hall was formally opened yesterday.

It will provide all the city council’s services to the public on one site.

The striking four-storey ABK Architects-designed building on Anglesea Street houses nine of the council’s 13 departments.

Four departments will continue to operate out of City Hall, as will the political and cultural functions of the city. Almost 350 civil servants, who were working out of rented offices across the city, relocated to the new building in a massive operation over the last four weeks.

Today, almost 500 employees are based at the new City Hall campus providing the public with a one-stop-shop location for all its services.

City manager Joe Gavin praised city staff for the seamless move.

He also singled out the late Finbarr Allison, a senior city official who died suddenly earlier this year, for his work coordinating the move.

Mr Allison’s widow, Catherine, their children, Cormac and Niamh, his father, Denis, and sister, Margaret, attended yesterday’s ceremony.

The new extension, which has integrated City Hall’s southern facing concert hall wall into its design alongside a marble staircase, has almost 100,000 square feet of office space.

Clad in Carrera marble and glass, it provides a pedestrian link from Anglesea Street, via an atrium and open-air square, to Eglinton Street.

It has a geo-thermal heating system, two roof-top “wind cowl” vents that use air pressure to circulate fresh air through the building, and an intelligent lighting system which reacts to external light to ensure the efficient use of electricity.

Built by Cleary Doyle Contracting Ltd, the building has already won an architectural merit award from the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Mr Gavin said its construction was funded by the city in a way which would not result in an increase in rates.

“The extension takes its place as one of the finest buildings in the city in the modern era,” Mr Gavin said.

“It symbolises the confidence and vibrancy of the city today as it undergoes a period of sustained development and extends eastwards to regenerate its historic docklands.”

Lord Mayor Cllr Michael Ahern said that when the decision was taken four years ago to build the extension on the site of a car park, the history of City Hall was very much to the forefront of the project team.

“The idea was that the new building had to complement City Hall rather than dominate it,” he said.

The original limestone City Hall building was opened in 1936 by Eamon De Valera.

It has undergone a €1.2 million revamp in recent months. Its stonework has been cleaned and its railings and footpaths have been replaced.