Lansdowne Road Stadium redevelopment well on target
The organisations also expect to be in a position to reveal the conceptual design for the new stadium within a month.
However the project will proceed without its appointed project director, Willie Ryan, who informed the Board “some time ago” that he wished to step down for ‘personal reasons’.
“We were delighted that Mr Ryan was in a position to stay with the project until this point, which we see as the first major milestone for the project,” said Mr Browne.
Sources close to the project insisted last night there was “nothing sinister” in Mr Ryan’s decision to step down. He will be replaced as Project Director by Michael Greene who has been with LRSDC since January.
Mr Greene has had a distinguished career in the management of major projects both in Ireland and abroad. Recently he was brought in as project manager to ensure the successful completion of the LUAS project.
The steering group set up by the Government to oversee the project - including representatives of various Government Departments as well as IRFU and FAI chiefs - met yesterday to receive a progress report on the development of the project.
Philip Browne, chairman of the Lansdowne Road Stadium Development Company said that the IRFU and the FAI were delighted with the preliminary designs shown to them by the stadium architects.
“Currently the architects are putting the final touches to the design while our project managers are finalising a detailed costing. We hope to be in a position to show the proposed designs to our many different stakeholders in the next month.”
He also noted that work was progressing on the planning application, which he was confident would be lodged before the end of the year.
The overall plan announced last year envisages work on the stadium starting in 2007, subject to planning, with a 27-month construction programme.
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