Five planning applications and 20 years later: Mardyke Walk apartments to be developed
Carmelite Terrace, Western Road, prior to demolition
LONG-idle waste ground at the western end of Mardyke Walk is finally set for development as work gets underway on a series of apartments and duplexes that will replace a terrace of homes demolished several years ago.
The site at Carmelite Place has been the subject of a series of planning application going back over 20 years, with the land changing hands during that time.
Six terraced homes and a shop called Carmelite Stores used to occupy the site, but these were demolished more than a decade ago and in 2018, the land was entered into Cork City Council’s Derelict Sites Register.
Now however building contractor Adrian O’Keefe has started work on the trapezoidal-shaped parcel of land that fronts both Western Road and the western tip of Mardyke Walk, to the rear of an AIB branch.
Plans for a new, modernist, residential development on the almost one quarter acre site (0.093ha) include 14 dwellings across a series of joined three-storey blocks over a raised podium, in a linear building along Western Road, with a short return block on Mardyke Walk.
Designed by architects Butler Cammoranesi who said the development “takes its cues from the historic Carmelite Terrace, now demolished”, it will include a mix of five one-bed and two two-bed ground floor apartments as well as five three-bed and two four-bed duplexes. Features will include balconies, set-backs and lower roof areas to demarcate individual dwellings “and provide a domestic feeling to the development”.
Site development works will also include 40 bicycle parking spaces, plantroom, waste and recycling storage, and external shared amenity areas.
Pedestrian and cycling access will be from Mardyke Walk. There is no on-site carparking.
The commencement of work on the site draws a line under a long-running saga of attempted redevelopment of the land at the junction of Mardyke Walk and Western Road. Planning files show an application in 2003 by a previous owner, Dermot O’Keefe, to demolish Nos 1-6 Carmelite Terrace and replace the half dozen houses with 20 apartments with basement carparking. This was shot down by the Council and the land was subsequently sold on to Josephine and Mary Corbett. They lodged their first planning application for the site in 2005, again proposing to demolish the terrace and shop and construct apartments, but later withdrew the application. They applied again in 2007 to demolish the terrace and to build 20 apartments with roof terraces and an underground carpark, designed by James Leahy & Associates Architects.
While planning permission was granted and the terrace was subsequently demolished, the development did not go ahead and in 2018, the site was entered on the council’s Derelict Sites Register.
Two years later, Josephine and Mary Corbett applied to develop the site for the third time, proposing to build 30 apartments over five storeys in a development with a reported cost of €6.9m. However it was again shot down by planners who described it as “visually overbearing”, saying if it went ahead it would be an “overdevelopment of the site”.
The Council was also critical of the scale, height, and massing of the development which it said failed to reference the "historical plot size of the site and the character of the urban block and the area". The site is within the Mardyke Architectural Conservation Area.
The Corbetts made their fourth application at the end of 2021 and permission was granted in 2022 for the three-storey, 14-unit development that is now going ahead. Cork City Council’s approval of the development was subject to 21 conditions, including that no vehicular parking be provided as part of the development and that the provision of a minimum of 40 high quality covered cycling parking facilities must be provided.
The development is next to Monfort Park and Marian Place on Mardyke Walk where homes are predominantly two-storey dwellings, mid-20th century in character.
Planners noted that architectural heritage guidelines state that “a high standard of contemporary design that respects the character of the area should be encouraged”. As it’s close to UCC’s Western Gateway building, it will not be the highest building in the area.
