How Cork's St Kevin's will be transformed into a ‘vibrant residential community’

The Land Development Agency has received planning permission for 266 homes and an enterprise centre at the former St. Kevins Hospital in Cork. Picture Dan Linehan

It’s not often the northside gets to look down on the southside, but whoever ends up living in the high reaches of Shanakiel, on lands once home to a now-derelict Victorian mental asylum, will have, arguably, the best city view in Cork.

Clearance from An Bord Pleanála earlier this week — once 36 conditions are met — for the Land Development Agency (LDA) to press ahead with plans for substantial residential development at the former St Kevin’s Hospital site in Sunday’s Well promises to transform what has long been a defunct, derelict resource. Currently used only by grazing horses and talented graffiti artists, it is set become what the LDA describes as “a vibrant residential community”.

It’s a significant project for the relatively fledging LDA. Its acquisition of this prime, former HSE site — just 2.5km from the city centre, with stunningly expansive views of the western suburbs — is part of a boldly ambitious plan to build 150,000 social, affordable, private and cost-rental homes across the State over the next 20 years.

The LDA also has its sights trained on the Cork Docklands, earmarked for massive development over the next two decades, including potentially 10,000 homes.

At St Kevin’s, once a rural and demesne setting, the plan to build 266 homes — including 32 three-bed and 14 four-bed townhouses, as well as 220 apartments/duplexes, with the focus on social and affordable — will involve the demolition of five of the eight existing structures, including a late-19th century, largely roofless, former mortuary. It was most likely designed by architect William Henry Hill, who designed the principal structure on the site, the imposing 21-bay, four-storey-over-basement St Kevin’s Asylum building.

Also cleared for demolition are the two-storey former matron’s residence, which are in a state of ongoing dereliction; a collection of roofless outbuildings to the rear of the two-storey St Dympna’s; and St Dympna’s itself.

The fifth building, the two storey former doctor’s residence (St Brigid’s Hostel/Teach Bríd) has already been cleared for demolition, following an application from Irish Water to facilitate the construction of a new water main to connect Shanakiel Reservoirs with the new Lee Road Water Treatment Plant, which is midway through a two-year, €40m overhaul.

The three remaining structures — with a gross floor area circa 24, 344 sq m — will be incorporated into the LDA development. An architectural heritage impact assessment report by Ballincollig-based John Cronin & Associates says the development will include “the stabilisation, conversion, renovation and internal reordering (including new structural frame and floors) of the former St Kevin’s Hospital building to provide 60 no. apartments”, as well as a 440 sq m 72-place creche at ground-floor level, with ancillary outdoor play area, and the conversion of the 630 sq m former St Kevin’s chapel building to provide a new office enterprise centre, with hot-desking facilities.

St Kevin’s chapel is described in the Cronin report as “a building of architectural and historical significance with certain artistic and social interest”.

St Kevin’s Hospital was severely damaged by fire in 2017 and the Cronin report says that, while the eastern third of the building remains “largely intact”, two-thirds is badly damaged. In some respects, the fire did the LDA a favour because, while the outer facade is a protected structure, the internal fabric is so damaged that the developer will not be constrained by the need to preserve its interior.

Externally, conservation of most of the surviving brick walls and fenestration, “as well as faithful restoration of the original roofline and southern facade of the main block” of St Kevin’s is on the cards.

The third structure to be retained — or at least a portion of it — is the former link corridor that connected the main St Kevin’s building to the adjacent Atkins Hall (formerly Our Lady’s Psychiatric Hospital, of which St Kevin’s was an annexe). In recent years, this has been a hotspot for antisocial behaviour.

The central archway in the corridor will be retained, but the largely derelict roof will be removed and the wall height reduced to create “a reflective seating area”/amenity walkway.

LDA plans for the site, where the Irish Examiner conducted a walkabout this week, also provide for a series of open spaces, including a primary open space to the south, largely part of a sloped landscape preservation zone, with natural woodland planting and wildflowers, overlooking the Lee Fields, County Hall and the Kingsley Hotel, and with views as far as the runway in Cork Airport. The upper portion of this sloped area will have seating and play areas, with plans also for separate play areas for younger and older children across the site, including multi-use games areas. A network of pedestrian and cycle routes will link different parts of the development.

The LDA also plans to incorporate “many of the incidental masonry boundary walls around the site, along with much of the terraced nature of the south-sloping site” in the proposed new landscaped development.

If what is proposed materialises — and the LDA is hoping that the first homes in its phased St Kevin’s development will be ready in 2023 —then, as per its own words, this “underutilised site, on the South-facing Shanakiel Ridge... has the opportunity to be an exemplar housing development offering housing to all sectors of our society”.

The LDA is correct in saying that the St Kevin’s site “has been a location for a challenging social history that we in Ireland have been trying to redress for decades” and that opportunity now exists “to take this site that was once the centre of institutional care and transform it into a place where people can live, children can play, and there are homes for all stages of life”.