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More than a decade after a € 1 billion regeneration plan for the site sank without a trace, new plans have emerged for 1,000 apartments at the Live at the Marquee site in South Cork’s docks.
Marina Quarter Ltd, part of the Glenveagh Group, has applied to An Bord Pleanála for its South Docks Strategic Housing Development (SHD) project at the former Ford Motor Company distribution site between Center Park Rd and Monahan Rd , near Páirc Uí Chaoimh.
The six hectare site has hosted the Live at the Marquee concert series since 2005. Its east flank will overlook Marina Park, which is being developed by Cork City Council.
And if planning is granted, 10% of the apartments – around 100 in a mix of one, two and three bedroom apartments – will be provided to Cork City Council to comply with Part V of the planning and development act, at an estimated cost of just over 45 million euros.
The documents in the planning files show that one of the 15 types of one-bedroom apartments to be provided will cost the city council just over 309,000 euros, while one of the 15 types of three-bedroom apartments to be provided will cost almost 615,000. euros.
Marquee’s site was the same as the one designated in 2008 by the high-profile real estate company Howard Holdings, for its ambitious 1 billion euro Atlantic Quarter project.
His plan called for three towering apartment blocks to deliver 575 residential units, 51,000 square meters of office space, a 5,000-capacity conference and event center, and a hotel.
They described the project at the time as a potential “strategic counterweight” to the Dublin IFSC, but it never materialized and Howard Holdings fell victim to the recession.
The site has remained vacant ever since, hosting Marquee’s summer concerts, amusement fairs and ice skating events, but the city council extended the site’s planning concession in 2008 this past March to October 12. of 2024.
The site was acquired in 2018 by Marina Quarter Ltd for just over € 15 million and, after a long engagement with the city council and An Bord Pleanála, the scale and detail of their SHD project has now emerged.
The company has applied for a 10-year planning permit for a mixed-use SHD, which will include:
- the construction of 1,002 apartments comprising a combination of studio, one, two and three bedroom apartments in 12 blocks, with heights from four to 14 stories;
- The residential blocks will include commercial and community facilities, including five commercial units, a Montessori school and nursery, a medical center, bar, cafeteria, a performance venue and area, as well as two community resource spaces;
- pocket parks, a linear park, residential squares and urban spaces.
The apartment buildings will be constructed in three courtyard blocks, each of which will include four distinct buildings gathered around a common courtyard space.
It includes plans for a new road through the site to join Center Park Rd and Monahan Rd, for two new pedestrian streets to join the same roads, and will also take into account the city council’s plans for an extension to Monahan Rd, eventually linking with the proposed eastern entrance bridge to link the southern docks with Tivoli.
SHD’s planning documents include detailed reports on the site’s lack of public transportation links and its potential risk of flooding.
They say the construction of the apartments and the delivery of infrastructure improvements by the local or state authority, including the Monahan Rd improvements and the east entrance bridge development, are not interdependent.
The developers say the 12 proposed residential blocks will be developed in three phases over several years, with around 100 residential units to be delivered annually, allowing external infrastructure and community facilities to be delivered in conjunction with residential development.
The planning reports also note that the site is in the strategic transportation corridor intended to facilitate a rapid transit system, a bus-based system first followed by a light rail system, as identified in the Area’s Transportation Strategy. Cork metropolitan area.
And while the development site is at risk of river and tidal flooding, located within the one-in-200-year tidal flood extent according to flood maps, developer planning reports say it is protected to “a very high standard “for the polder defenses along the quay.
“Cork City Council intends to raise the defense of this polder in the future to ensure that the existing standard of protection is maintained or increased. Consequently, it will be the main flood protection measure for the piers, ”the reports say.
But developers say the design and construction of the proposed development itself will provide a secondary line of defense against flooding, with all highly vulnerable development at higher levels so that development does not rely on polder defenses.
All of its residential development will be located at the first floor level to provide protection for a tidal flood level of one in 1,000 years, in addition to an allowance for a rise of more than 2m in sea level.
Despite this, developers say removable flood defense barriers will also be factored into strategic openings, and a ‘flood emergency response plan’ will be developed to warn people that buildings are located in a possible flood zone.
The 160 hectare Cork City Docks Region, stretching east from Cork City to Tivoli with four kilometers of coastline, is a development area of national importance that is unmatched in Munster and only in Ireland it rivals the docks of Dublin.
Unlocking its potential is vital if Cork is to meet the ambitious population, housing and employment growth targets set out in recent national development plans.
The northern docks area is bordered to the north by St Luke’s and Wellington Rd, while the much larger southern docks region stretches from Albert Quay in the east to Páirc Uí Chaoimh.
While several ‘vision papers’ have been produced for the north and south docks over the past 20 years, most of the development in the area has been near the city center.
But, in recent years, developers have made great strides east.
Work on the schemes in the North Docks is underway, with BAM and Clarendon’s Horgan’s Quay project largely completed. It includes offices, apartments and the recently opened Dean Hotel.
Planning permission granted to Tower Holdings for a 34-story, 241-room hotel on the Custom House Quay historic site has been appealed to An Bord Pleanála.
The JCD developers, who have built offices on the North Docks, also have planning permission for a 25-story residential tower on the former Sextant site on the South Docks.
A final decision on a proposal to move the Gouldings fertilizer facility from the city’s southern docks to the Belvelly Port Facility is also expected soon; the former IFI site at Marino Point.
Gouldings has operated from the site of the city docks since 1955 and the increased use of the new Belvelly port facility is part of the Port of Cork’s broader move from the city docks to consolidate its downstream activities.
Separately, the Port of Cork hired consultants to prepare an urban master plan for its Tivoli docks site in the North Docks, which has the potential to host thousands of new homes.
The site will be available for development around 2025 when the port’s container operations are fully relocated to Ringaskiddy.
The potential of the 150-acre Tivoli site is enormous. It is equivalent in size to the area between the port’s Custom House Quay headquarters and the UCC gates.
The master plan includes ambitions to exploit the marine leisure potential of the site.
A € 6 million city council plan to improve the roads in the South Docks to facilitate such regeneration schemes, the Docklands to City Center Road Network Scheme, including extensive work on Victoria Road and Old Blackrock Road, including countercurrent bike and bus lanes. you face a legal challenge.
Consultants were hired in October to design an extension of Monahan Rd to the east flank of the Marquee development site, which will eventually connect to the proposed east entrance bridge, linking the south docks with Tivoli.
The rapid pace of docks development proposals, including the tower at the Custom House Quay site and the demolition of the Sextant, has sparked a wider debate about how the docks’ rich history and industrial heritage can be protected in the new city development plan.
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