Former Cork soccer stadium to be knocked?
In plans lodged earlier this month, Cork-registered property company Soltaz Ltd has sought permission to demolish stadium structures at the former FAI grounds at Curraheen. Before its use by the FAI, the Bishopstown site was the home to Cork City FC in the 1990s.
The application proposes an office building of four to five storeys, to be constructed in two phases, and a single-storey café/restaurant. The site is next to the Curraheen Park greyhound stadium on the western outskirts of the city, just off the Ballincollig bypass.
In 2004, McCarthy Developments (Cork) Ltd was turned down by An Bord Pleanála for a student accommodation scheme of 150 residential units, following appeals against county council approval.
In late 2008 the same firm applied for a larger development to include 140 student/staff apartments, shops, bank, restaurant and science and technology space in seven buildings, but again, initial local authority permission was overturned five years ago following a third-party appeal.
* Cork City Council has permitted the change of a city centre retail scheme to mainly office use.
In a reverse of its own decision on a similar application last year, the council gave the go-ahead for the changes to permission for Stapleton House on Oliver Plunkett St.
In April, Padlake Ltd applied to change the permitted use of the first, second and third floors, from retail to office.
Further details included changing the facades and internal layouts of the building, which is on the corner with Smith St, which leads to South Mall. The company also sought permission to retain and finish the construction and use of a fourth-floor office.
The local authority requested further information from the applicant, which was submitted in July, and the council has now granted permission for the changes.
* Cork County Council has refused to extend permission for another ferry-landing station in Cork Harbour. Aidan Coffey and Jeremiah Murphy Partnership, trading as Harbour CAT Ferries, sought approval 18 months ago to build a passenger-ferry landing station next to the RNLI station at Knocknagore.
The plan was to extend permission, already granted on foot of plans first lodged in 2008, to build a pontoon with shelter and access gangway, digital advertising/ information board, bicycle stall, and to relocate a trawler-repair slab.
Earlier this month, Cork County Council had turned down the same applicants’ plans to extend permission for two further ferry stations in Passage West and Monkstown and also in Cork Harbour. Both had also been the subject of successful applications submitted originally to planners in 2008.
* Cork County Council has been asked to allow the completion of works on a housing scheme at Ballincollig.
Chaffinch Developments has made the application in relation to the works at Fionn Laoi, Poulavone, Carrigrohane, where applications were first lodged a decade ago.
In the plans submitted earlier this month, the firm has sought permission to construct 26 houses and all associated works. The applicants request permission for completion of two houses at Riversedge, as permitted under 2004 and 2007 applications.
In addition, approval is sought for the retention and completion of eight houses — four each in Heron’s Way and Kingfisher Close — in a changed design from the permitted duplexes to two-storey terraced houses.
* Full permission has been granted for a drive-through restaurant on a portion of the Musgrave Park rugby grounds on Cork’s Southside. The conditions set by Cork City Council relating to traffic access, parking spaces and opening hours of the planned McDonald’s facility had been the subject of an appeal by the company, following last month’s grant of approval for the project. However, the council has now issued a final grant of permission, after notification that the appeal to An Bord Pleanála had been withdrawn.
McDonald’s Restaurants of Ireland submitted the application last November, for the one-acre site, which borders Kinsale Road and Tramore Road. But local planners only gave approval after the company addressed issues relating to traffic and parking, which were dealt with in a dozen submissions by third parties.
