Prime site in Limerick city ready for development in two years

ONE of the last undeveloped landbanks in the city could be set for development in just two years.

The Limerick Gasworks site at O'Curry Street has lain idle for more than 20 years - but works are now well advanced to bring it back into use.

Up to now, the site has been deemed unfit for development due to the presence of industrial byproducts deep underground.

But as part of a €12m project, Gas Networks Ireland engineers have been pumping these out and removing them from the area - and it’s hoped the site will be ready for development by 2021.

John Collins, of Ervia, which is also working on the project, confirmed: “Two years would be our anticipated schedule.

“The current development plan says it can be used as a mixture of commercial and residential. There are no plans as to how to develop it. But once the contract is complete, we will apply to the regulatory authorities, the EPA.

“We have to interact with them and assure each other that we’ve done what we have set out to do. It will then become ready for development.”

The vast site has been mooted for potential riverside apartment complexes in recent times.

At present, soil stabilisation is taking place on the site, with the contractor on this project, Murphy International levelling the groundwork using a mix of cement and other substances.

“The soil on the site will then be available for development,” Mr Collins added.

The move comes in a week where the Limerick Civic Trust took possession of a historic archway from the site.

The local heritage group, will, later this week, remove the stone structure.

Dating back to the 1920s, it was located at the site’s old booster house, which amplified the gas supply around the city centre before more mechanical pumping arrangements came into play.

The Civic Trust will painstakingly number each stone and reconstruct the arch at a yet-to-be-determined spot in the city.

Thomas Wallace-O’Donnell, who chairs the Civic Trust, added: “We will find a suitable location in Limerick city to reinstate this stone archway, as a fine architectural example, and we look forward to the future of the site which is sure to benefit the Limerick community.”

The next phase of the remediation project at the gasworks site is the soil stabilisation work, which is set to commence later this year.

“We will be taking the soil sand stabilising it using a combination of cement and other mixtures,” Mr Collins explained.

“The soil on the site will then be available for development from thereon.”

Before this, the first stage of the remediation project involved removing a significant amount of coal tar from the site, a legacy of its use as the site of a gasworks facility from the 1830s to the 1960s, using environmentally-sustainable techniques.