City gets its building house in order

Tommy Barker reports on the booming City of Culture with lots of developments to come.

EUROPE'S Capital of Culture city for the past year donned dancing shoes, pulled its socks up, and put on the glad rags for the anticipated party year, now winding up tonight.

And, the good news is that no matter how successful or otherwise Corkonians and visitors felt the city performed on the cultural stage, the city did get its house together on the physical development front.

The impetus of the year will carry on for some time to come, and some serious style markers were laid down: Glucksman Gallery, in particular, take a bow, and this wooden architectural gem in the campus trees rightly got international recognition.

Higher up, the new €150 million airport terminal will be the first sign many of 2006's visitor will get that things have changed on the ground at Cork, while the flyover at the Kinsale Road roundabout will be the next progress update.

The city centre's essential core has been set up for a new generation thanks to architect Beth Gali's makeover. Oliver Plunkett Street joined St Patrick's Street in being re-paved and renewed, and the old, broad Grand Parade is next for the gala Gali touch.

Mahon Point, Ballincollig, Midleton and Mallow all had new shopping centres delivered, but the city didn't lose its shine, drawing in shoppers and shekels for Christmas, and reminding them just how good city centre retail therapy can be.

Three new central sites will add to the city's retail draws: the gaping hole at the three acre Guy and Co Cornmarket Street site holds out prospects of shopper nirvana from next year, and Owen O'Callaghan's even larger Academy Street site, which he paid €100 million or so to assemble, will go forward for planning permission in late January. He is also to add to his retail mix along Lavitt's Quay/Half Moon Street, when he subsequently picked up the old Irish Examiner garage site.

And, the quiet man of Cork property Joe O'Donovan (he bought the Wilton Shopping centre last December for €140 million) is assembling a retail site between Grand Parade and St Patrick's Street, to include the Central Shoe store, the Oyster, the Capitol cinema, tapping in to the English Market vibe and taking in a few of the smaller, Pana-fronting shops.

Jury's hotel closed down for site redevelopment and a new hotel is fast-rising up in steel-frame format. Cork hotels which opened to pick up the 2005 business and uplift included the Clarion in the city, the SAS Radisson in Little Island and Oriel House in Ballincollig. The Imperial added a luxury spa as part of its upgrade, and the Metropole recently sought to add apartments to its rear. The Kingsley, Maryborough House, Shandon Court and Rochestown Park hotels all went the extension route.

The Clarion Hotel opened up early in 2005 to a night of pzzazz, matched by Howard Holding's City Quarter offices next door, providing the city's first Leeside boardwalk and signalling a confidence booster for the docklands development now set to roll out further downriver. Lapps Quay, with nos 5 and 6 now occupied and sold, is now Cork's new Central Business District, with adjoining blocks and quays following in its wake.

City Hall became a fulcrum for crane activity, with a new extension to City Hall now in advanced construction behind the 1930s limestone city admin base, while County Hall to the west also got in on the glass box, class architectural activity. Albert Quay House next to City Hall now has an IT start-up centre called Web Works set for a 2006 opening, and 2007 will bring a new €60 million CIT School of Music to Union Quay.

On Eglinton Street, O'Flynn Construction got full planning permission for a 17 storey apartment tower, with retail, offices and two levels of basement parking - and even got it without so much as a Bord Pleanala appeal. Actually, that's a bit of a lie: the company itself appealed the local authority's development levy, and the Bord gave them a multi-million euro rebate. It continues a run of luck that included getting permission last year to develop half of Ballincollig town centre, also without a single third party appeal. Its plans for housing at Dunkathel will go through all of the board's rigours, however.

Values along the quays leap-frogged: two years ago, O'Flynns paid €15 million for the three-acre former An Post site: by mid-2005s, a half acre site abutting it made €8 million, with O'Flynns and Howards at loggerheads to buy, and the latter shading it after months of hard-balling.

Anglesea Street/Copley Street has large new office and apartments built by investors the Corbett family, and the big office deal of the year was the chance to relocate the Revenue Commissioner from Sullivans' Quay to a new site, with Ascon's Watercourse Road winning out over all other bids.

Fleming Construction ventured to Dublin and spent €165 million on an eight-acre site at Sandyford, and in Cork they forged ahead at Fota, with a new hotel nearly built and holiday homes in the wooded estate grounds. For good measure, they splashed out €18 million on amenity land by Bishopstown, which will prove a shrewd buy and can help them re-locate city sports clubs from prime urban site. They will lodge for planning for the Nemo Rangers site in Douglas any day now, for high-end housing.

The western suburbs continued to go high-rise at Victoria Cross, and the 2006 Budget go-ahead for UCC's dog track site will be the icing on the cake. Some of Cork's best-designed new buildings came to college campuses, including CIT's new administration building, UCC's Glucksman gallery and medical and nursing building at Brookfield, and St John's College back in the city centre.