Regional capitals in the Republic are set on a course of largescale development and expansion. In a five-part series, Environment Editor Frank McDonald surveys the changing face of Irish cityscapes outside of Dublin. He examines their plans for growth and gives his verdict on their ability to cope with expansion over the next 20 years. Beginning today with Cork, it is followed each day this week by Galway; Limerick, Waterford and Sligo.
The congestion of Dublin has refocused interest in Cork. Frank McDonald outlines the rebirth of the 'southern capital'.
There is such an air of confidence in Cork these days that plans are afoot for a "twinning" with Shanghai during its year as European City of Culture in 2005. Cork and Shanghai? Well, they're both port cities and, in the context of their respective states, second cities too.
What they also have in common, according to Cork city manager Joe Gavin, is a "very vibrant cultural scene" and good sporting facilities as well. But that's where the similarities end. For Shanghai is one of the world's mega-cities, with a population soaring above 20 million - more than 90 times that of Cork.
And 225,000 is the population of what is now called Metropolitan Cork. Within the city boundary, the 2002 Census recorded a figure of 123,338 - down 3 per cent since 1996 - a trend the city is determined to reverse. And whatever its size in the future, it will always be Ireland's Southern Capital.
Cork is getting on with it. There are more than 30 tower cranes on the city's skyline and a "real sense of rebirth", as public relations consultant Jean Kearney sees it. Cork people have given up whingeing about Dublin's failure to share, as Lisbon does with Porto, and their new "let's do it ourselves" approach is delivering results.
Architect Donough O'Riordan even believes the "choking of Dublin" by its over-development and consequent congestion has refocused interest in Cork. So has its year-long "gig" on the European stage in 2005 and dramatic changes in its appearance, notably the remaking of St Patrick's Street.
O'Riordan, who's from Limerick, has been living and working in Cork since 1972, says it is "a lovely city to live in" because it's so easy to get around.
"If you have six meetings here, you can get them all done in one day . . . There's also the means of getting out of the city with ease, to west Cork or Kerry."
Cork has other huge assets, notably UCC and Cork Institute of Technology (CIT), whose importance to the city is "massive", according to Ronnie McDowell, the city council's senior planner. He's from Stillorgan, Co Dublin, has been in Cork for 20 years and likes it so much he wouldn't dream of going back.
"It doesn't hit you like Venice or Bath, but you're always conscious of the water here," he says. "And one of Cork's strengths is that the city centre is relatively intact. We didn't knock it down in the way that Dublin did, and a lot of the credit for that must go to Joe McHugh and John O'Donnell."
The late Joe McHugh was city manager for many years during bleaker times, but as early as 1978 he rejected over-blown plans to build roads on stilts along the River Lee, at the expense of demolishing much of the city's fabric, while John O'Donnell was the chief planning officer who cared for it.
Donough O'Riordan, who used to complain about restrictive planning policies holding back the development of Cork, now concedes the city is fortunate to have retained so much. As a result, it doesn't have a profusion of examples from an era of bad architecture and even worse urban design.
The current Cork City Development Plan, adopted last January, requires "design statements" for all significant new developments. High-quality contemporary design is positively encouraged, in appropriate locations, and the plan says permission "will not be granted" for poor-quality buildings.
A lot of what is being built in Cork is very high quality work. The new library at CIT won the gold medal of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland for its architects, de Blacam and Meagher, who are also building an administration block, catering college and student centre, arranged around an oval plaza.
The latest work, due to be completed next year, will transform CIT's Bishopstown campus, where the original buildings reek of the days of package-deal RTCs. New buildings are also being added to UCC - most recently O'Donnell and Tuomey's Glucksman Gallery and O'Riordan Staehli's Student Centre.
Whatever about Cork "punching below it weight" in the past, as senior county council planner Nicholas Mansergh puts it, that's certainly not the case now. As if to show this, a 17-storey tower is proposed for the South Link Road and a Clarion hotel is under construction at Lapp's Quay, opposite the City Hall.
Derek Tynan Architects are currently completing a radically different student housing scheme at Victoria Cross, which rises to nine storeys and will provide high-quality apartments for 290 students in groups of four or six, with lavishly-fitted kitchens and livingrooms with leather sofas and great views.
And though Murray O'Laoire's Cork School of Music project has been dogged by difficulties, mainly due to its ill-advised procurement as a "public-private partnership", its belated erection will be another flagship of the new Cork. So too will the City Hall extension and the renovation of Cork County Hall.
The arrival of so many Dublin architects, some of whom have set up offices in Cork, has "raised the game" in what had previously been a clannish environment. But the development sector is still dominated by Cork firms such as O'Callaghan Properties, Howard Holdings, O'Flynn Construction and Clayton Love.
The biggest challenge is redeveloping Cork Docklands, where there is at least 300 acres of land available, much of it within walking distance of the city centre.
Stretching out for two kilometres on both sides of the Lee, it is an enticing prospect - if Cork can sustain this level of development.
Just as Rome wasn't built in a day, it's a 25-year plan to provide some 6,000 new homes and six million square feet of commercial space, including offices and retailing, as well as leisure facilities. But unlike Dublin, Cork doesn't have the International Financial Services Centre as a pump-primer.
Neither can it look forward to welcoming a large batch of public servants. Astonishingly, Cork city was totally overlooked by the Government's decentralisation programme and 920 public servants are to be dispersed throughout Co Cork to Clonakilty, Kanturk, Macroom, Mallow, Mitchelstown and Youghal.
"We made a very clear case for decentralisation to the city, but the Government has made its decision and we have to move on," Joe Gavin says. However, there are many in Cork who question why it was not selected, especially as the facilities it has to offer far surpass anything available elsewhere in the county.
In going for a dispersal strategy, the Government is ignoring the vast sums of public money invested in Cork in recent years, including €200 million for the main drainage scheme, which should give the Lee good water quality, and €120 million for a new terminal at Cork Airport as well as all the new roads.
Cork city has also lost out on the tourism front, attracting only 10 per cent of the 2.6 million visitors to the Cork-Kerry region last year. Measured on a per capita basis, Dublin earns twice as much tourism revenue as Cork, and Galway four times as much. So the aim now is to improve the "product".
Joe Gavin is putting a lot of store in the "Shandon Experience", with a restored St Anne's Church as its centrepiece, renovating the Lee Waterworks as an example of the city's engineering heritage, and restoring Blackrock Castle as a visitor centre with "state-of-the-art" astronomy facilities.
The city manager is not worried about the knock-on impact of the huge shopping centre being built by O'Callaghan Properties in Mahon, at the city's eastern extremity, because he believes the central retail zone will retain its pre-eminence by offering shoppers a different experience than out-of-town malls. Others see it as high-risk, even though the city centre is slated to get an extra 500,000 square feet of "higher-order" retailing on two sites - one centred on Cornmarket Street, where planning permission was recently granted for 130,000 sq ft, and the other on Academy Street, behind Patrick's Street.
People arealso buying houses closer to the city centre, in attractive areas like Sunday's Well, and more apartments are also being built right in the heart of Cork; in Shandon itself, 300 apartments in five schemes are planned to add to those already built between St Anne's and the Opera House bridge.
Our Lady's Hospital has been turned into apartments, as Atkins Hall, and there are plans for a further 500 apartments in the grounds of a former Ursuline convent in Blackrock. Another big scheme of 500 houses and 300 apartments is planned by O'Flynn Construction for the old barracks in Ballincollig.
"Cork could easily double its population, especially with schemes in or near the city centre," says Donough O'Riordan. He also sees "tremendous potential" in other sites such as the largely under-utilised Verolme Cork Dockyard, which occupies a 38-acre site less than five miles downriver from city centre.
Horgan's Quay is much closer, literally five minutes from the South Mall, and it is a "big disappointment" to Joe Gavin that firm plans have yet to be formulated for the development of this long tract of urban land backing on to Kent Station.
"It's a beautiful location, facing south over the river", as he says.
Its redevelopment for a good mix of uses would also offer an opportunity to re-orientate the station towards the Lee.
But even in advance of that, plans are being drawn up for another mixed-use development on the four-acre McMahon Timber site at Water Street, further east, with its own dock on the river.
A new pedestrian bridge has been installed between Shandon and Cornmarket Street and there are plans for three more along the Mardyke, as part of "The Banks of the Lee" project, while O'Riordan Staehli have proposed developing 100 gardens from as many countries on the Kinsale Road landfill site.
"A lot is going to happen here over the next 10 years," according to Donough O'Riordan. "Cork waited long enough for the Government to take care of it and what's happening now is that we're taking care of it ourselves," he says. And the City of Culture tag has already proven to be a catalyst in itself.
Despite its curious black-and-amber logo (Kilkenny's GAA colours), Cork 2005 looks set to perform the same function for the city as Frank Feely's 1988 Millennium did for Dublin, in focusing attention on its potential.
And that will help to make up for years of being persistently undervalued by politicians.