Progress on Limerick's Opera Site following Covid delays
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Construction of a €200m “Opera” development, which it is hoped will kickstart Limerick city’s economic recovery, is rolling on despite suffering a five-month delay due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The city centre site was acquired by Limerick City and County Council in 2011 after a previous plan to develop it failed during the mid-2000 economic crash and was subsequently handed over to “Limerick Twenty Thirty DAC” — a development company set up and owned by the Council.
A spokesman for Limerick 2030 said it is “targeting completion of the demolition and enabling works for Q1 (2022), followed by the construction of the common basement for the development, which spans a huge portion of the site”.
However, it has not all been plain-sailing, and Covid-19 forced a five-month work stoppage on site.
“It’s been a very busy second half of the year for us on Opera Square,” the spokesman said.
"Due to Covid, all non-essential work ceased in early January and sites did not reopen until early May.
"That took more than five months out of our demolition and enabling works programme and yet as we came towards the close of 2021, we had 75% of these works complete, and that’s testament to the work of our own team, our project managers Cogent Associates and contractors John Sisk & Son as they made up so much of the lost ground since May.”
The development, expected to create 3,000 jobs, was granted planning in February 2020, and workers have clocked up “30,000 hours of accident-free work” preparing the site for construction.
A swathe of buildings constructed between the 1950s and 1980s have been cleared, including “the Cahill May Roberts office and warehouse on Bank Place; Bogues Yard garages; the 1980s extension to the Granary (the Library and Old Docs nightclub); modern extensions to the Georgian Buildings on Rutland and Patrick Street, and the old AIB Bank on the corner of Ellen Street”.
Thirty people are employed in the “complex nature of demolition where operators of the machinery are highly skilled and there is need for strict controls on movement on-site”.
The total construction workforce will “increase to a maximum of 500 at peak construction phase” the spokesman explained.
In line with planning permission, 16 out of 18 buildings deemed to be of “historic significance” are being retained and work continues to provide structural supports to these historic buildings “preventing further deterioration”.
An announcement in August 2020 of the appointment of Cogent Associates, which oversaw Central Bank and Google’s EMEA HQ project, as Opera project managers, was seen as a significant step forward in commencing the development which was originally mooted over a decade ago.
Limerick 2030 chief executive David Conway has previously said the development “will trigger the most important and timely economic stimulant of modern times in the city, and allow Limerick to kick-start the Covid-19 economic recovery”.
The 3.7 acre “mixed-use” development, to include a new public square with pedestrian links to the city centre, is fully funded thanks in the main to loans from the European Investment Bank and the Council of European Development Bank — and remains on course to be delivered over a six-year period.
Limerick 2030 said it hopes Opera will place Limerick as an attractive location for companies exiting the United Kingdom due to Brexit.
The site was valued at more than €100m at the height of the boom but the council purchased it for €12m in 2011 following the economic crash.
Commenting previously, mManaging director of Cogent Associates, Kevin James, said: “Not alone is Opera of huge significance to Limerick but by virtue of what it will do for the regional economy in the mid-west, it will have national significance, it is a ‘key-note’ development in line with the Government’s Rebuilding Ireland 2040 plans."