Commercial Property

Crane Watch: 78 cranes visible over Dublin city centre on March 1st

Construction moving out to the suburbs as city centre schemes near completion

Cranes over the south Dublin docklands. Photograph: Cyril Byrne

Justin Comiskey
Tue Mar 6 2018 - 16:45

There were 78 construction cranes visible over the centre of Dublin on March 1st from the seventh floor of The Irish Times building on Tara Street.

This is down one on the previous month’s total but is still more than double the number recorded on February 1st, 2016, when the newspaper’s crane survey was launched.

However, construction is increasingly moving out to the suburbs as major city centre schemes approach completion and the number of available sites, particularly in the south docklands, dries up.

Sixty cranes were visible on the southside, down one on February. The core of the first of three towers at the Bolands Quay development at Grand Canal Dock is rising rapidly over the south docklands.

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The tallest of these towers will be an office block rising to 53m followed by a 49-m office block and an apartment block rising to nearly 48m. It is expected that the office element of the €150 million Nama-backed development – capable of accommodating 2,500 workers – will be ready by the end of this year.

North of the Liffey, March’s total of 18 cranes was unchanged from February. However, site clearance work is continuing at some very large sites close to the 3 Arena.

The Irish Times will continue to conduct a crane survey once a month to track construction levels in the city centre.

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