New neighbourhood planned for edge of Limerick city

THE LIMERICK Leader can today reveal plans for a new €600m development on the city’s edge.

Kirkland Investments are to seek planning permission for what amounts to a whole new neighbourhood on a brownfield site at Towlerton, near Ballysimon.

Headed up by Rudi Butler, the son of prominent city developer Robert, the firm has acquired almost 25 hectares of land near an area where the M7 and the N24 converge.

Construction of a new Educate Together secondary school on this land is well advanced, while Bons Secours also has permission for a private hospital. And, to add to this, a masterplan has been developed which could bring 300 apartments, offices, a Lidl supermarket and a hotel to the site to the east of the city.

Developer Rudi Butler says the massive scheme is projected to deliver up to 4,000 jobs, and he hopes it can be delivered over a five year period.

Healy Partners Architects have prepared the masterplan strategy for the overall site.

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“Kirkland is very excited about this development,” he said. “The hospital will help to attract business to Limerick. When we try to rent offices, what people want to know is where are the schools, what schools are available? Now we will have private healthcare, it will help to attract big investment into Limerick, and it will help Kirkland fill its office blocks, and the remainder of the Towlerton development.”

The project has taken another step forward today after Kirkland sought planning permission for a new five-storey medical centre which would provide private consultation rooms and diagnostics. It would operate separately to the €150m Bons Secours facility.

A separate planning application - in relation to the same wider development - showing plans for a neighbourhood centre with a new branch of discount foodstore Lidl at its heart is currently before the planning authority.

Also included in this application which envisages four buildings is a cafe, 38 apartments, further units for commercial or retail use and office space.

Mr Butler believes the new neighbourhood can provide accommodation for up to 500 people, with the apartments split between one-bed, two-bed and three-bed. “The mix will be phenomenal. People will be able to live there, drop their kids to school and go onto work. If they are working in the hospital, they can drop their kids at school and walk across,” he said.