New Bank HQ in Docklands can now proceed

[sallya]

Originally Posted by saoró...

Ah, cool. Courageous of them

I agree something needs to be dont with the place. Alternatively, if it were not developed, I reckon it could always be turned into an artwork of sorts, a reminder of past mistakes *deep* or even something thats just more pleasent to look at :P Grow some trees there, make it vertical garden or spray paint some murals etc.

http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/gall...tical-gardens/

[Catmalojin]

Originally Posted by sallya

http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/gall...tical-gardens/

That's really interesting - thanks for sharing (and welcome to SkyscraperCity!).

It'd be great to see something like the proposal in sallya's link - a real draw for locals and tourists alike to breathe some life into the area. At the moment it's pretty much dead after 18:00 (when most office workers are gone), unless there's a concert at The O2.

[thebig C]

Thats actually pretty cool

[belfastuniguy]

LOVE the 'hanging gardens' idea, absolutely fantastic!

[JD47]

I think they should just ask to build it higher and then we could have half a skyscraper in Dublin.
17 storeys would be good but not going to happen.

[thebig C]

Originally Posted by JD47

I think they should just ask to build it higher and then we could have half a skyscraper in Dublin.
17 storeys would be good but not going to happen.

Actually the Docklands Authority reached a private agreement with Liam Carroll to increase the height to 16 floors. However, a rival developer subsequently took them to court because the agreement was made without proper proceedures being followed.....so the Courts ruled against it!

C

[caicoo]

doesn't look bad...I would improve a shape of the skelet

[Dan]

So is something actually happening with this building? I see there were this go ahead from a few months ago but it still looks dead to me!

[IrishMan2010]

Originally Posted by Dan

So is something actually happening with this building? I see there were this go ahead from a few months ago but it still looks dead to me!

Yeah I travel by this site quite a lot and it's completely dead, to be honest I can't see anything happening with this for a while!

[odlum833]

Nama close to sealing deal to sell off Anglo's unfinished Docklands :

Sunday October 23 2011
THE hulking carcass of Anglo Irish Bank's unfinished headquarters in the Dublin Docklands may be close to changing hands.

Sources have indicated that US bank BNY Mellon and five other parties are vying to buy the skeleton building from Nama, with a deal expected to be announced in coming weeks.

The former Anglo HQ was developed by developer Liam Carroll but work on the building stopped abruptly when rival developers challenged its legality. Nama subsequently took control of the building when the economy collapsed.

The Central Bank has also expressed an interest in moving operations to the site.

Property sources have estimated that the partially finished structure could change hands for €5m, but that upwards of €30m will have to be spent to finish off the building works.

The concrete hulk of the building has become a potent symbol of Ireland's property and financial collapse over the past three years, with pictures of it appearing in international TV programmes and magazine articles.

Originally, Anglo provided the funding for the development to Mr Carroll's company, North Quay Investments, and was to rent part of the development as its intended new headquarters.

www.independent.ie

Anglo Irish HQ Building Deal Expected by November, NAMA Says

By Neil Callanan - Oct 26, 2011 1:38 PM GMT



National Asset Management Agency Chief Executive Officer Brendan McDonagh said he expects a resolution by November for the unfinished building once proposed as Anglo Irish Bank Corp.’s new headquarters, which has become a symbol of Ireland’s property crash.
McDonagh was speaking to a parliamentary committee in Dublin today. Anglo Irish was recently renamed Irish Bank Resolution Corp.
“For the last three months we’ve had huge interest in that building due to the shortage of Grade A space,” McDonagh said in an interview Oct. 21. “There are a number of options on the table at the moment that may involve Nama’s involvement.”

Bloomberg

[JD47]

If it is sold and can be finished will the building look like it was supposed to or is there a chance the new owner could go for a higher building with a different design or is it too late to change the structure.

[odlum833]

Originally Posted by JD47

If it is sold and can be finished will the building look like it was supposed to or is there a chance the new owner could go for a higher building with a different design or is it too late to change the structure.

They could do. But it is 200,000 sq metres of office space as already planned. I think they will finish it rather then adopt a new plan. As it is it will look very elequent IMO.

[JD47]

Originally Posted by odlum833

They could do. But it is 200,000 sq metres of office space as already planned. I think they will finish it rather then adopt a new plan. As it is it will look very elequent IMO.

I agree with you. The design is nice and will look cool but I just hope it could be higher with more floors.
That would be great.

[richiek83]

Slightly better quality pics of proposed site at the link below.

http://www.totarch.ie/portfolio/offices-NWQ.html

http://www.totarch.ie/portfolio/curr...Wall-Quay.html

[Catmalojin]

Nama to look at vertical park plan for Anglo quay site

FRANK McDONALD, Environment Editor

Mon, Nov 14, 2011



NAMA HAS invited the promoters of a “vertical park” for the concrete skeleton on North Wall Quay in Dublin, once mooted as headquarters for Anglo Irish Bank, to submit a formal expression of interest for the site before Christmas.

Architect Paschal Mahoney, co-ordinator of the Trees for the Quays project, said the invitation was given to the group by two Nama’s property portfolio managers at a meeting last Thursday.

“We had written to Nama’s chairman, Frank Daly, and then had a meeting for well over an hour with Kevin Nowlan and Colm Lundy to outline the proposal,” he said. “We felt they were anxious to be helpful and we’re to get access to the site on Wednesday.”

The project would involve punching through the concrete floorplates of the skeletal structure to make room for trees and walkways while using the rubble to create an open amphitheatre alongside, with a neighbourhood park to the rear, along Sheriff Street. Mr Mahoney said they also met with accountants McStay Luby, who are acting as receivers for the site, which is owned by the debt-laden Zoe Developments group. They learned the firm had not yet appointed sales agents to market it for disposal.

“The prime creditor would appear to be Nama,” he said. “We’re trying to persuade the agency to look at the bigger picture, and what the Trees for the Quays project would do in terms of increasing the capital value of surrounding properties in the area.

“We were advised of the situation regarding the property being in receivership and the restrictions this imposes, that the receiver has a fiduciary duty to the debtors to do the best financially for them and that this represented significant barrier.

“We are of the view that Nama cannot value this site on a stand-alone basis, as this site is immediately surrounded by several other Nama- controlled sites – so the valuation of the entire grouping of sites is far more important than this single site,” he said.

Separately, two former Zoe directors – David Torpey and John Pope – have set up a new business, Property Asset Management Enhancement Services, to generate interest in completing the North Wall Quay shells.

The eight-storey skeletal block has become something of an an icon of Ireland’s banking collapse. Among those said to be interested in leasing it is US bank BNY Mellon, which is looking at five potential sites in Dublin to centralise its 1,750-strong Irish workforce.

Among those backing the Trees for the Quays project is Philip Cronin, managing director of Intel in Australia and New Zealand, who was among those attending the recent Global Irish Forum in Dublin Castle. Mr Cronin is understood to have lobbied members of the Government, including Taoiseach Enda Kenny, to support the proposal, saying he could see great potential for the technology sector becoming associated with such a “sustainable” project.

Following a “very positive” meeting recently with one Government minister whom he declined to name, Mr Mahoney said his group had written to Minister for Finance Michael Noonan and Minister for Arts and Heritage Jimmy Deenihan seeking their support.

© 2011 The Irish Times

There's also this article from a few weeks ago.

[Catmalojin]

From today's Irish Times:

Central Bank likely purchaser of Anglo HQ shell on quays

FRANK McDONALD, Environment Editor

Wed, Dec 14, 2011

THE CENTRAL Bank has emerged as the most likely purchaser of the concrete shell of Anglo Irish Bank’s unfinished headquarters on North Wall Quay in Dublin, The Irish Times has learned.

Negotiations between the Central Bank and Nama, which wants to dispose of the site as part of its resolution of the debts of Liam Carroll’s Zoe Developments group, are at an advanced stage and a decision is imminent.

One well-placed source said the North Wall Quay site is the only one in Dublin with sufficient office space to accommodate all of the Central Bank’s staff, currently based in three main locations in or near the city centre: “We’re on the point of deciding to buy the Anglo site. It’s exactly the right size and fits our staff numbers well. It’s also the cheapest option available. Just because it was being built for Anglo doesn’t mean it should be jinxed.”

Last April, The Irish Times reported that this was one of the options under consideration, but it is now the only one on the table. There is also concern in the Central Bank that if it doesn’t move quickly, it could be “gazumped” by others.

It is known that US bank BNY Mellon looked at locating there.

It is understood the Central Bank took into account the possibility of an adverse public reaction to the State’s financial regulatory authority purchasing the most emblematic structure associated with the bursting of Ireland’s property bubble. But its rationale is the site could be acquired cheaply and the building completed economically, given that construction costs are now lower.

One of the main implications, however, is that the Central Bank would have no further use for its current headquarters on Dame Street.

“We don’t want to shutter it up,” the source said. “Property specialists say there would be no trouble getting tenants for it, or that it could be converted into a hotel in better times. But the building needs complete refurbishment and this can’t be done floor-by-floor.”

Apart from the “tower block” on Dame Street, Central Bank staff are housed in rented office space at two other principal locations – on Harcourt Road and Spencer Dock.

The Anglo shell on North Wall Quay, when completed, would provide 21,400sq m (230,350sq ft) of office space for all 1,500 staff in an institution that has expanded to fulfil its regulatory role in recent years.

© 2011 The Irish Times

Proposed Anglo HQ could house Central Bank in move that would be rich in irony

FRANK McDONALD, Environment Correspondent

Wed, Dec 14, 2011


The proposal by Mahoney Architecture and the Trees on the Quays group for a 'vertical park', to serve as a new landmark on the site once destined to be the headquarters of Anglo Irish Bank

Skeletal hulk on Dublin’s quays could be finished to accommodate bank’s growing number of staff

NOTHING SEEMS a more apt metaphor for the boom and bust of the property market than the skeletal hulk of an unfinished office block on Dublin’s North Wall Quay – particularly as it was once destined to be the headquarters of Anglo Irish Bank.

But now, with extraordinary symmetry, it may end up being completed to provide a new headquarters for the Central Bank, which had spectacularly failed to regulate the banking sector and prevent the development of the “casino culture” that fuelled the boom and led to the bust. There were other ideas about what should happen to the North Wall Quay hulk, including the radical proposal by Dublin-based Mahoney Architecture and the Trees on the Quays group for a “vertical park”, to serve as a new landmark on the Liffey, nurturing a more sustainable future.

“The public outcry against the great burden of debt imposed by the collapse of the Celtic Tiger resonates in this forlorn concrete frame,” the group said last September.

It believed the legacy of ruin “can and must be transformed into one of renaissance and redemption”, rather than have the derelict structure “dressed in glass and metal to become yet another anonymous office building” – perhaps to house another financial institution.

But the Central Bank is neither ordinary nor anonymous. And it is now on the point of making the momentous decision, following negotiations with Nama, of purchasing the site with a view to completing the abandoned half-built edifice as a headquarters for its growing staff of regulators.

Last April The Irish Times reported that this was merely one of the options under consideration, but it is now the only one on the table. There is also concern in the Central Bank that if it doesn’t move quickly, it could be gazumped by others – possibly even by a canny developer looking to “flip” the site.

There isn’t another office block in Dublin large enough to accommodate the bank’s staff of 1,500 – minus those working in the mint in Sandyford. At present they are housed in three locations – the existing headquarters on Dame Street and rented office space on Harcourt Road and Spencer Dock.

But what would happen to the iconic building that Sam Stephenson designed?

“We don’t want to shutter it up, a source said. “Property specialists say there would be no trouble getting tenants for it, or that it could be converted into a hotel in better times.” Either way, it would need complete refurbishment.

Another possibility being considered by the Central Bank would involve retaining a suite of offices there just to maintain a presence in Dame Street, even though North Wall Quay would be the new headquarters. Those occupying a tented encampment on the plaza in front would certainly miss the bank being there.

© 2011 The Irish Times

[Irish Blood English Heart]

The Dame Street tower would've been perfect for a hotel as the article above states. Wonder if there's a posibility of it getting the chop and becoming a new square for temple bar, or perhaps could be utilised in some kind of creative way, perhaps a vertical market?

Is it listed?

[Catmalojin]

Originally Posted by Irish Blood English Heart

The Dame Street tower would've been perfect for a hotel as the article above states. Wonder if there's a posibility of it getting the chop and becoming a new square for temple bar, or perhaps could be utilised in some kind of creative way, perhaps a vertical market?

Is it listed?

There are lots of possibilities of what to do with the site, I'm sure we'll see some interesting proposals if the Central Bank do move!

This is a list of listed properties in Dublin, I can't see anything about the Central Bank building at all (on the 'Dame Street' section, at least).

[nordisk celt83]

Would love to see it knocked; it's totally out of place. It would probably make a nice little square as the buildings around it are nice, I especially like the danish-esque ones beside it. Although, a square could attract all the crazies!!!


Talking about knocking stuff down... When are Hawkins House and Liberty Hall being demolished??? They've been talking about it for years!!!

[CraigKingOfireland]

...

Central Bank to buy Anglo building on quays



The Central Bank has agreed to pay about €8m for a half-completed Dublin office block that is synonymous with the property crash.

This is according to a person familiar with the matter.

A Bloomberg report said the bank will buy the building on North Wall Quay from the National Asset Management Agency.

Anglo had planned to use the tower as its headquarters before the company's collapse helped push Ireland toward the international bail-out in 2010.

''We don't comment on speculation about individual transactions, but we've previously indicated that we are optimistic that we will secure a satisfactory deal in respect of this property in the medium term and that remains our position," a spokesman for NAMA told Bloomberg.

The building was constructed by Liam Carroll, one of the country's biggest developers. He has seen many of his assets seized by banks.

"No deal has been finalised," a Central Bank spokesman, said. "We don't comment on the specifics of individual negotiations,'' he added.

Irish commercial property prices have fallen about 65% since September 2007, Investment Property Databank said in January.


© 2012 RTÉ