New use of PorterShed store far removed from the black stuff

The city’s PorterShed project is due to open up over the next month or so . . . but it will be far removed from the world of the black stuff.

Located at the back of Ceannt Station, the PorterShed will act as a think tank centre for individuals and companies hoping to ‘strike oil’ in terms of innovation and technology.

The former Guinness storehouse will, by early Spring, be capable of housing 85 ‘get up and go’ companies from as small as two employees to over 15.

Its city centre location will be one of the big attractions to those small companies, according to Galway Chamber in their Annual Review for 2015.

“Rather than endure long commutes and daily congestion, residents of the PorterShed can choose to live and work in places that are connected, ‘walkable, bikeable’ and connected by technology,” the Galway Chamber Review states.

Galway Chamber President, Frank Greene, said that the Chamber was one of the founding partners in the Galway City Innovation District Project and had taken a lead in the establishment of the PorterShed project.

“This is a new and exciting downtown innovation hub supported by AIB, that will house a number of high-potential start-ups, entrepreneurs, a co-working space and an open area for workshops and talks,” said Frank Greene.

He said that the PorterShed would be opening in early Spring of this year and would be an important part in the Chamber’s policy of attracting innovative start-up projects to the city.

According to the Chamber Review, the ethos behind by the PorterShed project ‘is being driven by the need to combine the city’s economic, physical and networking assets’.

“Its goal is to create an innovation eco-system that leads to a synergistic relationship between people, companies and place, that facilitates idea generation, open learning, collaboration and accelerates commercialisation,” the Chamber Review states.