The definitive timeline on the Cork event centre saga 

Former city manager Joe Gavin drafts a proposal, backed by councillors, that would see Cork City Council offer to meet 25% of the cost of providing a large-scale events centre, up to a maximum of €12m, after commissioned reports show that such a venue could not and would not be built without some level of state support. Interested parties are invited to come forward with a suitable site, and with a design, build, fund and manage proposal, and effectively pitch for the funding. Submissions were received from Hyde Partnership for a site on Carrigrohane Road, Ascon for a site at Black Ash, Howard Holdings for a site in the south docklands and Medaza for a site at the Showgrounds. The Howard Holdings proposal for a €33m event centre as part of its hugely ambitious €1bn Atlantic Quarter project on the former Live at the Marquee concert site is chosen but when the global financial crisis hit, Howard Holdings’ docklands dream, and then the company itself, came crashing down. It would be 2013 before the council revisits the event centre project.

May: Beamish & Crawford brewery on South Main St closes with the loss of 120 jobs.

Brewery site owners Heineken announce an international competition to select a development partner to regenerate the site. Bam wins with its €150m mixed-use Brewery Quarter project that includes offices, student apartments, and a 6,000-seat concert, events and conference centre. A planning application is lodged in December.

August: Cork City Council grants planning for the Brewery Quarter project – a joint venture between Bam and Heineken. It is hoped that work will start on the events centre first.

April: Cork City Council invites the private sector to pitch for an as yet unspecified amount of public funding to secure the development of an events centre in the city after experts identify ‘market failure’, which confirms the economic case to justify public investment. Councillors are told such a venue would be of enormous economic benefit to the city, generating between €8m to €12m per annum and supporting up to 160 jobs. It later emerges that €12m in public funds is available.

December: Following a protracted tendering process, talks on the preferred bidder go down to the wire and lead to a last-minute increase in available state aid to €20m. Bam, with its Beamish & Crawford site, and O’Callaghan Properties, with its Albert Quay site, are the only two bidders. Bam wins with its bid for €20m of public funding and all financial risk above that level. The total cost of the venue in their bid is estimated to be €50.4m. Bam brings entertainment giant Live Nation on board for the event centre. It will be delivered through their consortium, Susiesfield Development. Bam will build the venue. Live Nation will operate it. The Live Nation group, which includes Ticketmaster and Live Nation Concerts, is one of the biggest live entertainment companies in the world. Its portfolio in Ireland includes the 3Arena, the Bord Gais Energy Theatre, 3Olympia Theatre, and The Gaiety venues, as well as festivals including Longitude and Electric Picnic. Live Nation begins to examine Bam’s event centre design at a detailed operational level, a process that ultimately leads to major design changes and delays.

Bam acquires the South Main St site in full from Heineken, which now withdraws from the Brewery Quarter joint venture.

February: Just weeks before the general election, Taoiseach Enda Kenny turns the sod on the event centre. The public is told demolition will start within weeks, and the venue could be open by 2018.

August: It emerges that detailed internal designs on the event centre are months from completion, and that it won’t open by 2018, as predicted.

September: Demolition work and minor archaeological investigations start on site.

January: Bam restates its commitment to delivering the venue for Cork, and insists the project is still on track.

Early January: The internal design is complete. But the then Housing Minister Simon Coveney concedes that another €10m in state funding will be required.

February 20: Then Bam boss, Theo Cullinane, tells city councillors at a behind-closed-door briefing that following Live Nation’s review of the initial designs, a larger venue is needed to make it commercially viable. He says construction costs have increased to €65m, that an additional €12m of public funding is required, as well as a €6m contingency fund as full detailed design is not complete.

Theo Cullinane

February to September: The city council engages London-based entertainment venue consultants, IMD Group, to carry out a review of the latest designs to ascertain if the operator-driven design plans were the minimum necessary to meet the business plan which formed part of the original bid. The review confirms that much of the cost increases have been driven by the need to run full scale theatre performances similar to those held in the Bord Gais Energy Theatre. These performances are a central part of the business plan submitted with the successful tender. The council also engages KMCS Quantity Surveyors to examine the costings of the new design to establish why a €73.16m cost in March of that year is so significantly higher than the original cost in the 2014 tender. This report shows the cost increase resulted from an 20% increase in venue size, and structural and specification changes driven by the operator.

September: The council applies to the Department of Culture for an extra €10m for the project. The request is subjected to rigorous legal scrutiny.

February: Bam and now Tánaiste Simon Coveney reveal the outline of a funding deal they say has been agreed in principle. Bam says if deal is agreed, building could start in Q3 of that year.

May: Mr Cullinane concedes that timelines outlined in February will not be met. He insists the project will be delivered.

August: Bam lodges a revised planning application with Cork City Council for the new and enlarged venue.

October: Planners request further information, citing concerns about the design of the building. Tánaiste confirms that legal advice from Attorney General on the extra funding request is still not ready.

November: Mr Coveney finally confirms that legal advice clears an increase in state investment in the project from €20m to €30m – comprised of €21m grant aid and a €9m repayable loan.

December: The council questions the terms and conditions attached to the €9m loan element and seeks new legal advice. Tánaiste later confirms that talks on the schedule of payments for the entire €30m are underway.

Simon Coveney

January: The council questions the terms and conditions attached to the €9m loan element and seeks new legal advice. Tánaiste later confirms that talks on the schedule of payments for the entire €30m are underway.

February 12: Third anniversary of the sod turning.

February 28: The Cork Business Association, Irish Hotels Federation Cork, Vintners Federation Cork and Restaurant Association Cork issue a joint statement Simon Coveney calling for “certainty, accountability and meaningful communication” on the project.

March: It emerges that project costs have now hit €85m. An assessment by Mitchel McDermont Construction Consultants says the project is subject to ongoing cost inflation of €450,000 per month, with construction inflation running at 7% per annum.

March 19: RTÉ’s Prime Time focuses on the project. Tánaiste insists the fundamentals of the project are sound. The programme reveals nothing new but infuriates city councillors who are accused of ‘closing ranks’ and not talking to the programme.

Early April: Tánaiste says he has set a new “political timeline” for key decisions and raises hopes of progress on the deadlock before Easter. Martin Fraser, the secretary general to the Government and the Department of the Taoiseach, begins work to resolve the complex issues linked to the delivery of the state funding.

May: The Easter target passes without substantive progress. The Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, admits in an interview with the Irish Examiner that the 2016 sod turning was a mistake, but insists the venue can and will be delivered. Funding talks, and the planning process continues.

October: Council planners grant planning for the revised event centre designs, but the following month, the decision is appealed to An Bórd Pleanála. The state proposes that a fixed amount of public money of provided, and agreement is reached where a maximum grant of €50m is accepted. It is also agreed that the governance of the project will now move from the department of the arts to the department of housing and local government.

January: The council publishes a special voluntary ex-ante transparency notice in the Official Journal of the European Union on January 4 to inform ‘the market’ of proposed changes to the project’s funding agreement, and of its intention to conclude a contract with developers Bam. That notice reveals that state funding will double to some €50m, as a non-repayable grant to Bam and the venue operators, Live Nation.

February: The new funding package faces a High Court legal challenge from Gleneagle Hotel (Killarney) Ltd, the owners of the INEC in Killarney.

March: As covid hits Ireland, An Bórd Pleanála upholds the council decision to grant permission for the revised event centre building. Work is completed on the 420-bed Lee Point student apartment element of Brewery Quarter.

April: As the covid crisis escalates, the legal challenge is withdrawn. With planning and funding now in place, it is thought the final hurdle has been cleared to allow construction start. But as the scale of the global impact of covid emerges, and live entertainment grinds to a halt worldwide, Live Nation’s global revenue stream is decimated, prompting real fears for the future the company. Its focus is on survival, not on spending millions in the development of a venue in Ireland’s second city.

Ann Doherty

June: Mr Coveney insists the project is still viable. “Life will move on from covid-19. We will have concerts again, we will have events again,” he tells the Irish Examiner.

November: Former chief executive of Cork City Council, Ann Doherty, tells councillors that all parties are intent on bringing the funding agreement, which dictates the terms on which government support is granted, to as close a point as possible to where it can be signed off once revenue streams are restored in the global events industry.

As the world learns to live with covid, the event centre project effectively grinds to a complete halt.

October: At the launch of the National Development Plan in Cork, Minister for Public Expenditure, Michael McGrath, tells the Irish Examiner that the €50m in state aid for it is still ring-fenced, and still available.

December: It emerges that detailed design work on the venue has finally begun, with a target completion date of the following autumn. The council advertises a tender for consultants to complete a business case plan for the project, in line with the public spending code requirements. Bam’s €30m restoration of Beamish & Crawford’s landmark Counting House as city centre office space is complete.

February: Cabinet agrees to provide an additional €7m to meet the cost of "construction delays" caused by the covid pandemic, bringing to €57m the total pledged. It mentions an end of year construction start date, and a 2024 completion date.

September: With war in Ukraine raging, fears mount that hyper-inflation could push construction costs even higher and further delay a start date.

October: It emerges that the target dates announced in February will be missed, with detailed design work taking longer than expected.

February: As the seventh anniversary of the sod turning passes, Bam tells the Irish Examiner that it is progressing with detailed design and up-to-date costings and “anticipates being on site in Q3 of 2023”.

July: Documents released under Freedom of Information reveal documents reveal almost €1.5m of public money has been spent on the project – most of it on legal and management consultancy fees.

August: The Irish Examiner reveals that the detailed design has been completed, and that a raft of documents have been submitted to city planners to ensure compliance with planning conditions. The documents show that the design team is completing project pricing and engaging with specialist subcontractors and suppliers in preparation for the construction contract works through to completion.

September: A cost increase is confirmed as Ms Doherty tells councillors that the detailed designs “indicate an increase in the cost of the event centre over previous estimates”.

November: The council finishes its assessment of the detailed designs and costings and prepares a report for the department of housing and local government.

January: Ms Doherty confirms that council has sent its report to the department, which requests additional information, which is supplied some weeks later. The department begins preparing a memo for government. Any decision on additional funding is now a matter for Cabinet.

Micheál Martin

February: Prime Time focuses on the project again, but again, no new information is revealed. Tánaiste Micheál Martin tells the Irish Examiner that the proposed venue has the potential to be a “major catalyst for growth” of business in the city, and says government will look at the “broader picture” while considering any additional funding request. Three councillors force the holding of a special city council meeting to discuss the funding arrangements, branding the project “a €100m Fine Gael vanity project” but councillors vote overwhelmingly in favour of pursuing the project.

September: Mr Martin confirms fresh legal issues, fuelling fears of even more delays. The legal issues are linked to the scale of changes in available state funding.

October: The government announces the retendering of the entire project. Critics brand the whole thing a farce, at this stage.

December: The hugely successful Marina Market in Cork announces that it plans to compete in the tender for the state aid package. It says it has established a team and is working with a leading architectural body to oversee an international competition to design a new 5,000- seat conference space, a 100-bed hotel, and a gallery, focused on its south docklands site, inspired by the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Guggenheim Bilbao.