The developers see their scheme as an anchor for Dublin's O'Connell Street, writes Frank McDonald.
THE SUCCESS of the Guinness Storehouse in becoming Ireland's number one visitor attraction inspired the "Park in the Sky" proposal for the Carlton site. If Guinness could draw so many people to a relatively remote location, Chartered Land could surely pull them into O'Connell Street.
"When we began to look at the restaurant quarter [ on the upper levels of the shopping centre], the challenge was to make it work," said chief executive Dominic Deeny. "We needed a very strong anchor and we see garden, funicular and observation deck doing that."
Mark Turpin, of Dublin Central Architects, sees the "Park in the Sky" as a bold, spectacular move of the sort that all cities need - and Upper O'Connell Street needs more than most.
At present, as he said, this part of the street is dead, apart from people queuing at bus stops. One of the main reasons, he believes, is that the unbroken frontage between Henry Street and Parnell Street is too long at 400m, so the other "big move" in the scheme is to open up a new street, more than 30m wide at its entrance, halfway along the block.
That's where the former Carlton cinema is located, but the architects plan to engage Abbey Pynford, a Welsh firm, to shift it in its entirety 50m to the north - much like the Kaisersalle in Berlin's Potsdamer Platz was relocated.
Several buildings on the O'Connell Street frontage, such as the Dublin Bus headquarters, are to be rebuilt because the architects regard them as unsatisfactory. "We want to get back to something approaching the original Georgian plot widths," Turpin explained.
The Chartered Land holding in the area, at 5.5 acres, is more than twice as large as the site originally assembled by the Carlton Group.
So there is scope to put in not just one, but two internal streets connecting O'Connell Street with Moore Street and Henry Street.
At their junction, the tallest element would rise up 13 storeys, with a glazed canopy on the front over a "hydroponic wall" of vegetation similar to what French architect Jean Nouvel did on the Quai Branly in Paris. This would provide green space on an otherwise arid street.
The internal streets, though covered by a "rainscreen", would be open to the public 24 hours a day, unlike the malls of a conventional shopping centre. They would also serve the purpose of providing a new route between the Henry Street area and Parnell Square.
Mr Turpin said this was vital to complement initiatives by Dublin City Council, such as the proposed relocation of the Central Library from the Ilac shopping centre to the former Ambassador cinema.
Alongside it, one of the underground stations on Metro North would be located.
The architect is not concerned that the proposed "Park in the Sky" would be north-facing and at an angle of 22 degrees. "We have run this past experts in the Botanic Gardens and they believe it will work," he said.
A total of 65,000sq m of retail space is proposed, in addition to almost 50,000sq m planned by Arnotts for nearby Princes Street. Dominic Deeny said studies commissioned by Chartered Land showed that such a large injection in one area would be viable.