The future redevelopment of Dalymount Park was discussed in the Sunday Business Post dated 17 June 2007
http://www.thepost.ie/post/pages/p/s...338-qqqx=1.asp
Scheme aims to establish links between the North Circular Road and the Royal Canal, writes Neil Callanan.
Tesco has fired a preliminary shot across Liam Carroll’s bows regarding his future plans for Dalymount Park in Phibsborough, Dublin 7.
Its submission to Dublin City Council on the Mountjoy/Phibsborough local area plan (LAP),which was prepared by GVA Planning, states that further retail development around the redeveloped Phibsborough shopping centre will generate more traffic and therefore exacerbate congestion.
Carroll is widely expected to submit planning for a scheme in Dalymount Park similar to the Glasshaus in Tallaght, which comprises retail on the ground floor with apartments and open space overhead. The retail element would inevitably include a competitor to Tesco.
In its submission, Tesco does, however, make a number of points regarding the retail offering in the area and admits it needs to improve. ‘‘The retail provision is falling behind both qualatitively and quantitatively,” states the submission.
‘‘We would suggest that the quality of retail offer needs to be enhanced and upgraded in order to maintain Phibsborough’s significance as a district centre in the area and realise its development potential in line with its prime urban designation.”
However, even with a new centre, the issue of retail in the wider Phibsborough area will need to be looked at. ‘‘With regard to retail floorspace, the quantum is restricted due to the historic urban form of Phibsborough Centre which in turn is restricting retail growth,” it states.
‘‘Phibsborough is due to undergo significant changes over the next few years, which will result in population increases and we submit that, in the absence of available retail floor-space in the centre of Phibsborough, peripheral areas should be considered for redevelopment.”
Liam Carroll has not submitted a proposal at this stage. Albion Properties, which owns the Phibsborough shopping centre, requested the LAP include a provision that the area between Doyle’s Corner and Connaught Street, including the shopping centre, be designated the preferred location for future retail development and high density mixed use development.
The Office of Public Works has made a submission regarding Mountjoy prison and the adjoining garda station and Egan’s cash and carry. The site is 21.3 acres, making it around the same size as both St Stephen’s Green and Temple Bar. It is also about half the size of the entire Trinity College complex.
‘‘By virtue of its scale, the redevelopment of the site will transform the immediate area with its effects rippling far beyond the immediate site,” states the submission.
It adds that ‘‘proposals for the redevelopment of key sites in Phibsborough, such as Mountjoy, Dalymount Park, the shopping centre, the Mater Hospital and further afield in Grangegorman have the potential if properly managed to truly reverse the fortunes of this borough.” It also says Phibsborough lacks an identifiable centre and has a poor urban environment.
The submission also reveals the design team appointed by the OPW is investigating the possibly of bringing the canal into the site.
The site already has 240 metres frontage onto the canal and diagrams contained in the submission suggest part of the main prison and training unit could become part of a new park.
Mountjoy must be opened up, it states, ‘‘creating a space that is the catalyst for the regeneration of the local area, that aspires to create a sustainable urban community, that connects the Royal Canal back to the city’’. Its design team is therefore assessing the buildings at present to determine what is essential and what can be demolished in order to establish links between the North Circular Road and the Royal Canal.
The eventual scheme will try to establish links with the Mater, suggesting there will be some medical facilities built there, and make use of its proximity to the new third-level institutions.
Botanic Business Centres, which owns a 4.2-acre site, has submitted a plan that its site be redeveloped to include office, retail and residential uses. ‘‘The subject site is a prime example of a key site that has excellent access to public transport and is now an underutilised site,” the submission by Fewer Harrington Lawlor states.
It proposes the site be redeveloped with six blocks of between five and eight storeys with provision for boutique stores, cafes, restaurants and business enterprises. One of the buildings, which is listed for preservation, would become a hotel while the listed chimney would become a viewing platform. An adjoining site has already been cleared for development.
Sinn Fein’s Mary Lou MacDonald and Nicky Kehoe have proposed that a rail station be set up beside the Brian Boru pub to encourage public transport use. The Maynooth rail line passes by the pub.
They also want Broadstone station, which is currently used as a Dublin Bus depot, to be reopened and stress that a major underground car parking facility is required.
They believe the area needs a new core of retail and residential use and state it badly needs a new anchor tenant and major hotel name to open. The Cabra Park Residents Association is campaigning for 20 per cent of Dalymount to be kept as public open space and for a height limit of around three storeys. Many of the submissions show concern about the large scale subdivision of houses into flats in the area and contains major criticism of CIE’s regarding derelict land it owns around Broadstone.
