Rail station project will bring 3,000 jobs

Date Published: {J}

EXCLUSIVE

BY ENDA CUNNINGHAM

Plans to develop a new city centre on CIE lands at Ceannt Station will provide a jobs boom for Galway, with around 3,000 full-time positions being created, the Sentinel can exclusively reveal.

Industry experts have estimated that the massive new retail, commercial, residential and cultural development will generate up to 3,000 permanent positions.

And the construction phases – expected to take around 10 years in total – will also create temporary jobs, and provide a prop for the collapsed local construction sector.

The development will include around 600,000 square feet of retail space, more than 200 residential units, bars, cafés, restaurants and cultural space.

Last Friday, our sister newspaper the Galway City Tribune exclusively revealed that local developer Gerry Barrett is advancing plans for the 15 acre site by preparing key properties in his vast city centre portfolio.

He has sought permission for the demolition of a 1970s extension to the side and rear of the Meyrick Hotel – the roadway alongside the hotel will form one of the two main access points to the ‘New Galway’.

The second main access point will be from Mr Barrett’s ‘Topaz’ site at the Docks, where the oil tanks were removed last summer for the Volvo Ocean Race.

Later this year, Mr Barrett will be officially appointed as the partner-developer of CIE for the Ceannt Station plan – at the moment, he is the preferred bidder for the project, and a lengthy legal process is currently taking place to have him appointed for what will be one of the country’s biggest-ever construction projects.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.