Dublin’s docklands regeneration has so far been a success. But there are questions about the site of a major conference centre, writes Noella Pio Kivlehan
By the standards of most cities, the plans to regenerate Dublin’s docklands were ambitious.
An area of 1,285 acres on the city’s east side, just off the city centre, was earmarked for a £2bn cash injection to turn it into a financial centre and home for culture. It was to have a conference centre, 11,000 homes and a retail and leisure hub.
But all of those ambitions are being realised as a whole new Dublin quarter is springing out of the ground.
The International Financial Services Centre, which covers 39 acres at Custom House Docks, started in 1986, has been completed and fully let.
It is now home to half of the world’stop 50 banks – taking 2m sq ft of office space – 1,130 apartments and two hotels, Jury’s and Clarion.
Since the IFSC’s completion, attention has been turned to the rest of the designated docks area, where mixed-use schemes from several developers are well under way (see panel). One major development is the National Conference Centre.
The entire development is based on a masterplan launched in 1997, and overseeing the 15-year plan is the Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA).
The DDDA replaced the Custom House Docks Authority, which was in charge of the first stage of development that began in 1986.
Set up in the same year as the launch of the masterplan, the DDDA is a privately-funded body working with public partnerships and headed by chief executive officer Peter Coyne.
The authority has specific planning responsibilities for the docklands area under section 25 planning powers – a fast-track process guiding the conception through to completion of a development.
But, inevitably for something on such scale, it has attracted criticism. One major out-of-town developer has labelled the development “too scattered”.
“It’s all over the place. It’s a bit done here and there. You have a lot of development going on without a lot of coherence. If you spread development over 15 years, it’s hard to sustain infrastructure,” he says.
Grainne Hollywood, the DDDA’s director of property, rejects this criticism, saying it is clearly working to the masterplan.
And the DDDA can only work at a pace laid down by the various developers that own land in the docklands.
Insignia Richard Ellis Gunne’s head of development Ronan Webster says: “In credit to the DDDA, it has got on with it, whereas other developers haven’t. The docks have dumbfounded everybody in the market. If you had talked about restaurants and shops down there being successful, people would have looked at you strangely.
“Very little has failed down there. Everything that has been built has worked.”
Even so, two further questions are bothering observers.
The first is whether the Spencer Dock, which falls under the DDDA’s masterplan, will get the lucrative National Conference Centre being developed by Treasury Holdings.
The second is whether the retail and leisure development at the heart of the IFSC – Stack A, otherwise known as Custom House Quay – will work.
The need for Ireland to have a national conference centre has been the subject of national debate for years.
The tourism board, Bord Failte, and the city’s hotels have been campaigning for a conference centre for some time.
Dublin is the only European capital without a conference centre, and the country is potentially losing millions of euros of income by not having one.
A solution seemed to be around the corner when Treasury Holdings won a government competition four years ago to build the centre.
The developer said it would earmark space at Spencer Dock, part of the DDDA’s masterplan, to the development.
It would be the perfect focal point for the DDDA’s regeneration plans. It would also attract extra business for hotels and leisure facilities around the whole docks area.
The government was keen. It would have a conference centre within the city centre, where Bord Failte deemed it most appropriate. In addition, the European Union had earmarked €33m for the project.
But funding problems have dogged the scheme ever since. The EU money was lost because the EU blocked the incentives the Irish government was prepared to give Treasury Holdings to build the centre.
Speculation then began as to whether the government, under pressure to pump money into schools and hospitals, would help fund the centre.
In stepped Jim Mansfield – a reclusive millionaire and south Dublin’s biggest developer, with the reputation of a man determined to get things built.
Mansfield last year offered to build and fund a centre at his Citywest hotel complex site at Saggart, outside Dublin. He says he would be anxious for a conference centre, providing he was allowed to build it.
“We have a suitable site, and we have the most hotel rooms outside Dublin. The city is crying out for a conference centre and we would like to get one as soon as possible.”
Now commentators are asking what will happen to Spencer Dock if Mansfield gets his way. Does it mean investment earmarked for the docks will go elsewhere?
Frustratingly for Treasury Holding, the government has yet to make a final decision on funding the project – although a decision is expected soon.
Last month John O’Donoghue, minister for arts, sports and tourism, was asked a direct question in the Dail – the Irish parliament – about Mansfield’s offer.
He answered saying: “A project of this scale, complexity and cost requires very detailed and careful examination, with the result that the consultation process with other government departments is not yet completed. It remains my intention to bring the matter to government as soon as possible.”
However, O’Donoghue has kept Treasury Holdings and its desire to build the centre very much alive.
In his answer, the minister referred to Bord Failte’s research findings saying: “Optimum positioning of Ireland in the conference market recommended that a national conference centre should ideally be placed in or near the city centre with appropriate links to accommodation, transport and other facilities.”
This is, of course, good news for Treasury Holdings, although its director, Richard Barrett, is adamant that his company will build the centre. “The site has been slated for opening at the start of 2006,” he says.
And in response to Mansfield’s plans, Barrett says: “If you have a centre out where Mansfield is proposing it, there will be no shopping opportunity. Out there, the hotels will be abandoned when there are no conferences.”
Most of Dublin’s property pundits are sure that Treasury’s Spencer Dock proposal will win funding from the government.
But even if a conference centre at Spencer Dock does not go ahead, Barrett promises there will still be a public building of some sort on the site.
And Mansfield says that, if the government rejects his proposal in favour of Treasury’s, he would not be interested in developing a centre on his own.
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Docklands development |
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Already constructed (1986-2002/3) |
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● First phase of the International Financial Services Centre was started in 1986. IFSC1 comprised 114,000m2 of offices, 400 apartments, one hotel (Jury’s) and 5,000m2 of retail. It was developed by a consortium of DDDA, CH Hardwick and British Land. ● IFSC2 was started in 1997, comprising 70,000m2 of offices, 23,000m2 of retail, 1,200 apartments, one hotel (the Clarion), a university – the National College of Ireland – two gyms and a creche. It was developed by the DDDA and a consortium of other companies. |
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Under development (2003-2014 expected) |
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Developments planned are in the north docklands. They will include Spencer Dock, being developed by Treasury Holdings. Spencer Dock is expected to hold the National Conference Centre (at 4.5 acres). The north docklands will have 400,000m2 of offices, 50,000m2 of retail and 4,000 apartments. Treasury Holdings has signed Marriott to take space for a hotel. The Hyatt Group has been signed to open a five-star, 180-bed Park Hyatt Hotel and residences. The Grand Canal Dock (see illustration), on the south side of the River Liffey, was bought by the DDDA in 1998. The authority has spent€32m remediating the 22-acre former gas works. Three residential sites have been sold so far. The first is being developed through a joint venture between the DDDA and the second by Park Developments and John Sisk. The purchaser of the third site has yet to be announced. The three schemes will have around 900 homes, plus some retail and offices. The DDDA has also reserved a site for a cultural venue, possibly a theatre/concert hall. A pedestrian bridge is to be built immediately adjacent to CHQ, linking it to the St Stephen’s Green and Merrion Square areas south of the river. |
1 Offices, retail, cafes, bars, restaurants
2 Homes, offices, retail, cafes, bars, restaurants
3 Apartments
4 Offices
5 Riverside 1 offices
6 Riverside 2 offices
7 Deluxe Hotel
8 Arts/cultural
9 Grand Canal Square
10 Ocean Bar
11 Grand Canal Dock Dart Station
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Custom House Quay (Stack A) |
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There is high demand for a luxury goods quarter |
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The Dublin Docklands Development Authority is transforming a 19th century Grade I listed building, originally called Stack A, into a luxury goods quarter. |
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Around €40m is being spent transforming the former wine and tobacco warehouse into a 14,000m2 retail/leisure complex, to be known as Custom House Quay. |
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When it opens next spring, it is hoped the complex, in the centre of the International Financial Services Centre, will house two anchor tenants and around22 boutiques, such as Gucci and Ralph Lauren. The DDA is in talks with one of the UK’s top upmarket department chains about anchoring the complex. |
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There is demand in Dublin for such a complex. The city, which has a strong retail market, has seen such a quarter arise in South Anne Street, off the city centre, but it is without major names. |
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Custom House Quay’s relationship with the financial district will be much like the Royal Exchange’s in the City of London. |
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But some of Dublin’s agents are worried. They believe that the likes of Gucci would rather be in the city’s main shopping street, Grafton Street – an area so sought after that, when rare units become vacant, landlords can command rents of €5,274 per m2 (see p62). |
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“Stack A doesn’t have the attraction of Grafton Street. We have a number of retailers who wouldn’t consider locating to Dublin unless they had a Grafton Street unit,” says Domhnaill O’Sullivan, associate director at CB Hamilton Osborne King. “If I was Gucci and given the chance of Stack A or Grafton Street, I would go to Grafton Street.” |
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Dundrum’s new shopping centre, south of Dublin’s city centre, is also vying for top names. |
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DDDA’s director of planning, Grainne Hollywood, disagrees with O’Sullivan. He says the DDDA is “confident of CHQ’s success because it is going to be unique”. He points out that, as well as being Ireland’s only luxury retail area, CHQ will have five restaurants and a 12,000 sq ft exhibition space. “We wanted a luxury retail scheme rather than an ordinary one, because we wanted a destination.” |
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Chris Phillips, a London-based retail luxury retail expert at Cushman & Wakefield Healey & Baker and who has acted for Louis Vuitton, believes there is an opportunity to create a luxury quarter in Dublin. |
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Luxury retailers are happier when clustered together, he says, so if CHQ succeeds in getting a few of the big names signed, the rest should follow. |
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