Rising Ambition - Towering Idiocy!

You know? Sometimes, I wish the Black & Tans had been more successful in their burning of Cork, had actually managed to flatten the entire city and driven its population away. It would have made things a whole lot easier for urban developers in the following decades, because nowadays, it seems you can’t even build a simple office block without a storm of protests, and god help you if you want to develop anything that’s actually ambitious.

Take the current plans for the redevelopment of Customs House for example. In recent months, a New York based development company has announced plans to redevelop the entire site, integrating the bonded warehouse into a 40 storey mixed-use high-rise development. Once these plans became public, the outcry was immediate and vicious. There were the usual cries of “what about the homeless??” (Article on that is in the works), and other NIMBYist whining, involving all the usual suspects, including the Greens and other left-wing organisations. Recently, these “characters” have stepped up their campaign, with a petition by a certain John Adams to stop this development from going ahead. No, we’re not talking about the second President of the United States, but rather about his Cork namesake, who appears not to share President Adams’ intelligence, far-sightedness and strength of character. On that note, he does not seem to be a particularly successful artist either, with no traces of any major exhibitions since 2014. Even the Crawford Art Gallery, which you would expect to have a special interest in showing local artists, only has one painting of him, which says something. He doesn’t even appear to be able to keep a website, because the one that is linked to his Facebook page is not available anymore. In this day and age, that is an absolute no-go.

A Boardwalk, the bonded warehouse completely refurbished and revitalised, the  City Marina integrated into the concept, how that failing painter, or any of his NIMBY supporters, can claim that this will destroy the complex is beyond me. Unless he wants to keep the buildings in their current state, in which they could easily be the set for yet another Saw or Hostel type movie.

From this perspective, the fact that the warehouses will actually be INTEGRATED into the new development is even more obvious.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. In an article in the Evening Echo, Mr. Adams argues that the development would completely destroy the existing warehouses and the old Port of Cork HQ. Well, I don’t know what plans, if any, Mr. Adams has actually seen, but all the renderings that are available so far show that the bonded warehouse will essentially be kept intact, with only parts of the roof replaced by glass, and linked to the Port of Cork building with a glass atrium, so he is telling straight-out lies right from the start. His petition is even worse, written in the tone of a wailing teenager swooning over her dream boy while desperately trying to sow doubt about her competitor. It also reeks of hurt pride and petty jealousy about the fact that his “campaign” to save the Customs House site from being sold didn’t succeed, as well as bitterness about his failed 2010 bid for political office. Hmm, an artist of questionable quality and character who has political ambitions, that sounds familiar. Where have I heard that before? 

As for his claims that the buildings are “prominent”, or “visually beautiful”, I’m sorry Johnny boy. That statement is so factually incorrect that it could almost serve as a press statement by the Trump White House. They are hidden by the old offices of the Port of Cork when approached from the city side, overgrown, dilapidated, not to mention hidden from sight by the “Port of Cork” sign when driving up Horgan’s Quay from Dunkettle or Glanmire. I mean, I get where Mr. Adams is coming from, judging from his Facebook page, he seems to like painting ruined urban wastes, because that is a recurring motif among his works, at least those that don’t resemble the stuff partygoers leave on the pavement of Washington Street after tumbling out of Rearden’s on a Saturday night. This also sums up the solidity of his arguments and counterproposals. I sure hope he sticks to art, and takes some extra classes there, because he stands no chance in hell of ever doing anything productive!

Not that the Green Party is any better in this regard. Recently, they’ve piggybacked on John Adams’s petition (Now there’s a mental picture I didn’t want to see) to add their own questionable statements into the debate. Now, to be fair, I have a lot more respect for the Green Party than I do have for any other of the left wing political movements in Ireland, and I fully support their stance on cycling, the repeal of the Eighth Amendment, and really give them credit for supporting a directly elected mayor for Cork. However, I firmly believe that they have completely missed the mark with regards to the Customs House project. They claim that the building should be used as a local amenity and retail centre, with “mooring” and training facilities”, which all sounds very nice, but is basically fluffy and unsubstantiated PR-speak, laced with innuendo that the bonded warehouses would be destroyed, were the high-rise project to go ahead. I already addressed these issues in my rebuttal of Mr. Adams’s petition, so I won’t repeat it here. They claim that such a skyscraper should be built in another part of the Docklands. Well, what other part are they talking about? Any potential site for such a building would take it closer to the affluent suburban areas of Blackrock and Douglas, and would trigger easily the same type of protest there.

While I'd like to see the Port of Cork sign integrated into the new development, even this building would be a massive statement, which is what Cork needs.

Now, as I said before, my attitude towards the position of the Green Party contains a few more shades of grey than my position towards Mr. Adams, though it’s still way less than fifty shades, so don’t worry. Reading their press release on the petition, they actually support a high-density redevelopment of the docklands south of the river, something I absolutely agree with them on. However, such a project needs a highly visible kick start to get it going. Both One Albert Quay, and the Navigation Square development (Also derided by Mr. Adams), while nice projects in their own right, are too low key for that. That is why this high-rise development is so crucial. Not only is it in my eyes the only way to turn the Customs House site into a site that can sustain itself in the long term, it will, together with Navigation Square and Horgan’s Quay, completely transform the entrance into Cork city centre. Is it ambitious? Yes! Will it be an engineering challenge? You bet! But that is what Cork needs right now.. For too long, the people have been content with just bowing down, telling great stories about Corks supposed heroic rebel past, while snuffing out anything and anyone whose ambitions exceeded the height of the bar counters in the numerous pubs. The Elysian was jeered, the current terminal at Cork airport is ridiculed and sneered at still, and the Glucksman Gallery only seems to have escaped similar hostility by being hidden away on the UCC campus. The prevailing architecture in Cork can best be summed up as “small buildings for small minds with small ambitions”, and this attitude will be the death of Cork if it is allowed to persist any longer. So, with regards to the Customs House project, I say: BRING IT ON! And to hell with John Adams and the other NIMBYs!!