Finish date for €20m Prism pushed out to next year
Fenced off Prism site near Parnell Place bus station in Cork City. Picture Denis Minihane.
THE target date for completion of a long-awaited €20m glass prism building, potentially Cork City’s most eye-catching office block, has been pushed out until midway through next year.
The planned 15-storey block, inspired by New York’s Flat Iron building, was due for completion in August this year. However a spokesperson for developers Tower Holdings Group (THG) told the Irish Examiner that the latest completion date is now the second quarter (Q2) of 2024.
“The Prism has been impacted by a number of factors, however Tower Holdings Group expects the development to be completed during Q2 of 2024," the spokesperson said.
Work on the project, on a tight, triangular-shaped, 280 sq m (3,000 sq ft) site next to the city’s central bus station at Parnell Place, got underway towards the end of November 2021. Piling, by CField Construction, was completed in June last year. However since then the site has been surrounded by hoarding, with no activity taking place, prompting speculation about the future of the project.
This week, THG reiterated what it has been saying since last August, which is that piled foundations and substructures are now substantially completed on the Clontarf Street site, “which will shortly be ready to progress with the superstructure”.
The Prism, a glitzy commercial development designed by architects Reddy, and geared to provide more than 6,000 sq m of office space, is at the “gateway” to the planned new docklands district where work is due to commence shortly. It's one of two ambitious THG proposals for the city, as the group is also behind the proposed €140m mixed-use/hotel development at the old Port of Cork site on Custom House Quay, which was given the go-ahead by An Bord Pleanála in March 2021. This proposed development includes plans for a 34-storey hotel, which would be the country’s tallest building. Rejuvenation of bonded warehouses on the quayside is part of the proposal. However, more than two years after planning was granted, no date has been given for work to begin at the site.
The CEO of Tower Holdings Group is Kerry-born Kevin O’Sullivan, whose siblings Dónal and Helen are awaiting sentencing in the US, after being convicted in October 2021 of defrauding unions of benefits funds, which should have been paid on behalf of workers at Navillus, a large New York-based construction firm of which Dónal was CEO. Dónal was also a passive investor in the Port of Cork site.
Navillus’ former chief accountant, Pádraig Naughton is also due for sentencing this month, having been found guilty of the same charges as Dónal and Helen.
