Brewery site wins out for Cork events centre after last-minute €20m fund deal

Cork is finally poised to get a major concert and events centre on a former brewery site after a last-minute deal to increase State investment in the project from €16m to €20m was secured.

Talks went down to the wire yesterday before the Heineken/BAM consortium’s plan to build a €53m 6,000-seat venue on the historic Beamish & Crawford brewery site finally emerged victorious from a complex, lengthy, and competitive tender process for public funding.

Their project, the centrepiece of a €150m Brewery Quarter regeneration of the entire brewery site, beat the only other bidder, developer Owen O’Callaghan’s €50m 6,000-seat venue proposed for Albert Quay.