Donal O'Donovan: City centre needs people - not 'window dressing' - to revive its fortunes

Artists’ impressions of how the new Opera centre will look

Donal O'Donovan Twitter Email

June 29 2017 02:30 AM

The good news is that Limerick's city authorities appear keen to retain much of the physical integrity of what's left of the huge Georgian era block they've earmarked for a vast €150m redevelopment.

The bad news is that the 'Opera Site', as it's known, that will set the social and economic tone of the city for decades, is a pretty bland, oversized, office scheme. Previous plans to include a college campus and housing have been ditched.

The scheme is exactly the kind of high quality project a well-funded commercial developer would deliver in Limerick, or anywhere else.

It's the wrong answer for Limerick. In many ways the city is already booming, with a rapidly increasing supply of high-quality jobs in domestic and international firms, as well as the likes of UL and the Revenue Commissioner.

Housing, for those in a position to buy, is affordable.

But nowhere in Ireland suffers more from the ravages of suburbanisation.

During business hours that's OK, but in the evenings it tells. Pubs do well thanks to a buzzy population of young workers and students, but families and older people are gone by 7pm. The streets that don't have pubs become dark and forbidding, and areas that are fun for the young are off-putting for the rest of us. The effect is self-reinforcing.

Nowhere would turn up its nose at the investment Limerick is getting under the Twenty Thirty programme, a state-backed project with a phenomenal €500m budget.

But a downtown office park that will inevitably empty out at 6pm every evening and sit idle at the weekends, is the wrong answer when Limerick city's big problem is depopulation.

Limerick now has lots of initiatives to make it more attractive to look at, but that's window dressing. For its long-term health the city must become more attractive to live in. Limerick Twenty Thirty has the resources to make it happen, but this feels like a lost opportunity.

Donal O'Donovan: City centre needs people - not 'window dressing' - to revive its fortunes

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