Beamish & Crawford plaza to remain off-limits to Cork public
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A new city plaza which has been developed outside the regenerated Beamish & Crawford Counting House in Cork city will remain closed to the public until the building is occupied.
The confirmation came from developers BAM who restored the historic former brewery building and opened it and the plaza to the public for the first time at the weekend for a creative event.
The Counting House, which dates back to 1792 in the heart of the city’s medieval precinct, has undergone extensive restoration as part of BAM’s Brewery Quarter regeneration project on the South Main Street site.
The project included the development of a large plaza outside the Counting House which has been fenced off throughout the project. The fencing came down at the weekend as the building hosted the Stamp creative festival, which attracted thousands of people to experience the new venue.
But BAM has confirmed that the plaza will be fenced off again and will remain off-limits to the public until the Counting House is occupied. The restored Counting House has a footprint of almost 90,000 square feet, with ancillary basement car parking, bicycle and shower facilities, and is currently being marketed as office space.
A spokesman for BAM said the plaza area will become ‘public realm’ once the Brewery Quarter development is completed along with the planned multi-million streetscape upgrade of South Main Street and surrounding areas which is being advanced by Cork City Council.
Some €100m is earmarked for investment in urban regeneration projects in the wider South Main St and Grand Parade areas over the coming years, including the revamp of Bishop Lucey Park and the construction of a new city library.
Meanwhile, BAM has also confirmed that it is still progressing with the detailed design and “up-to-date costings” for the long-stalled events centre project which is earmarked for a site next to the Counting House, and "anticipates being on-site" in the third quarter of this year.
The sod for the 6,000-capacity venue was turned in February 2016 but not a single brick has been laid on the venue since.
In February 2022, the Cabinet sanctioned an additional €7m of government funding for the project to meet the cost of “construction delays caused by the covid-19 pandemic”, bringing to just over €57m the total amount of taxpayers’ money in the project which is supposed to be delivered by BAM and Live Nation.
At that time, it was hoped that construction would start before the end of 2022 with an expected completion date by the end of 2024.