The latest North Quay project drawings released by Falcon Real Estate have further whetted the public’s appetite for a project which has long been touted as a game changer for both city and region alike. Speaking to The Munster Express, company Director Rob Cass said the project was currently akin to an iceberg. “You’re only seeing the ten per cent above the water line, but the 90 per cent out of view and below the water is where all the work is happening,” he said.
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“It’s a very exciting time and the team are doing some really good stuff right now, from practical elements such as how we’ll store all of the bikes that are going to go on the Greenway- now a solution for that has been provided by a Carlow-based company, a regional solution that’s of global standard – and that and so much other ongoing work is going to percolate more and more with the public in the coming months. We’re getting to planning and we’re 90 per cent there. So am I happy with what we’ve achieved to date? Yes, I am. I’m very happy.”
Mr Cass continued: “The next thing we’ll be doing is socialising (the development), going out to market and talking about the North Quays, engaging Cushman (& Wakefield – commercial real estate agents), talking up what we’re putting in place here and approaching a whole range of people about who’s going to be in the offices there, who’ll be in retail and so on; the macro picture of this is so completely positive, you just can’t say no to what we’re going to have in place on the site. When you’re talking about long-term growth numbers of 100 per cent, that really is a high growth number worth focusing on. Compare that to the current noise being generated by Brexit. Brexit will have a two to three per cent knock off growth – but it’s not going to kill growth – we’re talking about a two to three per cent reduction off the long-term growth of 100 per cent, so why aren’t we focusing more on the delivery of that 97 or 98 per cent rather than the two per cent Brexit might shave off?”
Regarding the company’s recent statement which re-iterated its commitment to the Michael Street and North Quay projects, Rob Cass added: “We just took a bit of time to put the PR in place, in terms of employing the PR company to manage the positive message and get it out there. I can’t do that, I’m supposed to be putting it altogether so it was good to engage Heneghan to get the right messages out there in a more structured manner and yes, it’s been a big help. We needed to announce, through the statement, what it was we were doing and re-affirm to the general public what we’d been saying in the background and now it’s out there in a more structured manner and that’s been very helpful.”
And with Waterford City & County Council’s North Quays website now live (waterfordnorthquays.ie), any lingering claims of an information deficit regarding the plan appear to have been well and truly debunked. “We’re working very closely with the Council to make sure everyone is communicating about all the positives that are happening. The Council has been doing a huge amount of work with our architects and the design team and it’s inspiring to see them working so hard on something which is of such huge importance to the community because there’s a lot of expectation on their shoulders. A lot of them are working crazy hours in a good way because they’re keen to keep the momentum going. There’s a ton of work going on in the background and I’m very pleased with the progress we’ve made.”
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