Cork event centre at a 'crucial point', Coveney says
Enterprise Minister Simon Coveney: 'I don’t think people will have to wait much longer for that process to conclude.' Picture: Brian Lougheed
THE seven-year saga to try and build a major event centre in Cork City is at “a crucial point” with no guarantee of a successful outcome, according to Enterprise Minister Simon Coveney.
“I think this is a project that is going to happen, but it’s not there yet in terms of an agreement between the Government and the developers on final costs, and who contributes what to that cost,” said Mr Coveney, who was in Cork to address the Construction Industry Federation Southern Construct Summit at the Rochestown Park Hotel.
He said the process of agreeing a cost had to be finalised “in the coming weeks” and that work was under way at a “very senior level” in Government to ensure the building of the 6,000-seater event centre could finally get under way.
“I don’t think people will have to wait much longer for that process to conclude, and hopefully it will be a successful conclusion.
“It may not be, but hopefully it will be, and that Cork can finally see a huge piece of infrastructure being built in the centre of the city that I think isn’t just about the events that are coming, it’s about the economic impact of that on the city centre for restaurants, for pubs, for cafes, for hotels, for retail outlets in the city.
"Having a 6,000-seater Event Centre with four or five events a week would be transformative”, Mr Coveney said.
After many delays, compounded by the pandemic and rising construction costs, work on building the centre was meant to begin towards the end of 2022 with an end of 2024 completion date, which is no longer feasible. Mr Coveney said the project has a two-year build period.
He declined to give a definitive timeline, but said now there was clarity in terms of design (final design documents submitted last month to city planners), the process was under way to reach agreement on the financial contribution of the State and that of the developer (BAM) and operator (Live Nation).
While the State previously committed €57m (more than the original entire cost estimate of €50m) that is no longer enough, Mr Coveney said.
“That was a figure agreed a number of years ago. We’ve had building inflation since then, so we need to bottom out the figure and there needs to be agreement on who makes a contribution to any increased costs. It’s not just the state’s responsibility. It’s also the owner and the operator and that process needs to be finalised.”
The most recent overall figure given was about €85m.
The event centre saga goes back to February 2016 when then Fine Gael taoiseach Enda Kenny turned the sod on the South Main Street site which was formerly home to Beamish & Crawford brewery.
