THE Millennium Footbridge across the Liffey in Dublin city centre is now set to cost £1.5 million, or twice as much as expected, The Irish Times has learned. But Dublin Corporation is going ahead with it anyway.
The new bridge, linking Ormond Quay with Wellington Quay not far upstream from the Ha'penny Bridge, was to have cost £750,000. This was the figure which the corporation had in mind when it sponsored a design competition for the project.
The Dublin architects Howley Harrington, in collaboration with the consulting engineers Price and Myers, from London, emerged from an international field of 153 entrants to win the competition last June with a design inspired by the Ha'penny Bridge.
The city manager, Mr John Fitzgerald, said detailed costings carried out over the past two months had shown the bridge would cost "a lot more", but he was confident the shortfall would be made up because of the project's significance.
Major work on the quay walls, fibre-optic lighting systems and other sophisticated features pushed the cost close to £2 million. However, he said, the corporation had since managed to "pare it back to a more reasonable figure" of £1.5 million.
According to the city manager, the £750,000 figure first quoted was for the "bare bridge" and did not include ancillary features. And although senior officials are disappointed about the overrun, he made it clear that the corporation would go ahead.
"Taking account of the purpose of the bridge, which will take pressure off the Ha'penny Bridge - very urgent, as far as we're concerned - and create a new link between Temple Bar and the north side, I'm quite satisfied that it's worth it," he said.
Last month, after a lengthy debate on the Millennium Spire planned for O'Connell Street, the City Council approved the footbridge project by simply nodding it through.
At the time, there was no indication that it would substantially exceed the budget.
The architects of the bridge, who could not be contacted yesterday to comment, have said the lightweight metal structure will be prefabricated off-site as a single piece and then floated up the Liffey for installation, probably in the autumn.
The footbridge is one of a number of millennium projects which focus on the river. Others include a boardwalk suspended from the quay walls between O'Connell Bridge and Grattan Bridge and a plan to floodlight all the bridges east of Heuston Station.
