Dublin-based property development company Castlethorn Construction has today submitted a major planning application to South Dublin County Council for Adamstown Central, the €1.2 billion town centre at the heart of Adamstown - which it terms "Ireland’s first 21^st century town." 

Castlethorn says that at 154,000 square metres, Adamstown Central is one of the largest ever mixed-use planning applications in the history of the State. 

It will provide a full range of community, civic, residential, retail and commercial facilities"for the award winning town’s expected population of 30,000 by 2015 equivalent in size to other major towns such as Drogheda and Dundalk."  It will also lead to the creation of over 2,500 new jobs within the Town Centre and its immediate environs.

The plan was created over a three year period by "a design team of unprecedented scale lead by seven architectural practices supported by 55 professional consultancies" including movement consultants, colourists, lighting designers, wind consultants, landscape architects and engineers. The team’s brief was to reconcile the social, environmental and commercial considerations of 21^st century urban living while creating a unique place of distinction in the European built environment. 

Castlethorn Construction says its "plan for a large cluster of integrated community infrastructure in Adamstown Central is designed to foster a strong civic ethos and facilitate the natural development of the town’s community. Amongst the planned facilities are a Primary Healthcare Centre, an Inter-Church Place of Worship, a leisure centre and swimming pool, a Library (Idea Store), Enterprise Centre and several civic squares." 

The 20 acre town centre will be located beside Adamstown train station and the town’s schools, all of which were opened in 2007. The town centre will also incorporate 60 retail units including restaurants, cafés and bars; an 8 screen cinema and 900 apartments.  Car parking will be entirely underground on one level facilitating a pedestrian-friendly, traffic free environment. 

Castlethorn Construction says its goal of creating a unique urban setting was underscored by the appointment of no less than seven architectural practices namely:  Duffy Mitchell O`Donoghue, Grafton Architects, HKR, Henry J Lyons, Metropolitan Workshop, O`Donnell & Tuomey and OMP.

Castlethorn says the diversity of the design team has lead to a plan of co-ordinated variety.  The urban design masterplan for Adamstown Central draws its influences from across Europe, some of them historical, including the intimate street patterns and public spaces of the 12^th century French Bastides settlements.  The design is omprised of a network of new public squares and numerous, intimately planned primary and secondary streets. The new heart for Adamstown will provide a high quality contemporary built environment that will have its own unique and memorable ‘sense of place’.

Sustainability

Adamstown has been designed from the beginning as a sustainable community with low energy buildings as part of the vision. The buildings in Adamstown Central have been designed to achieve in excess of a 40% energy saving compared to current standards of the Building Regulations.  The Community Heating System will use 30% renewable energy sources.

Low Carbon Community

In the design and construction of the buildings a significant reduction in the amount of CO2 emissions has been achieved through design and specification. Once built, the reduction in CO₂ emissions is estimated to be about 1,750 tonnes per year which is equivalent to heating energy required to heat 1000 homes.  During the construction stage it is estimated that Castlethorn will save another 7,300 tonnes of CO2 through the use of low-carbon concrete.

Healthcare - The Health Services Executive (HSE) is developing a new Primary Care Centre in AdamstownCentral to facilitate the provision of a comprehensive range of services to the new population of Adamstown and the existing population in South Lucan. 

With the development of the new Primary Care Centre the public will be provided with the full range of HSE services including inter alia:  Public Health Nursing, Area Medical Officer services, Community Welfare, Dental, Speech Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Physiotherapy and Social Work. Providing Primary Care Infrastructure in the District Centre of Adamstown will facilitate an integrated approach to care delivery involving the local community, General Practitioners, Health Service Professionals and other service providers.

Library & ‘Ideas Store’

South Dublin County Council’s new library in Adamstown Central will represent a new era in 21^st century information exchange and learning. The Library will be the main component of the new town Civic Centre, which will also house a Community Exhibition Centre, community meeting rooms and a youth café.  One of the inspirations behind the new Civic Centre is the “Ideas Store” concept pioneered by Tower Hamlets Council in London where its library building is more than just a library or a place of learning. The new library concept also offers a wide range of adult education classes, career support, training, a crèche, meeting areas and arts and leisure pursuits. 

Inter-Church Place of Worship

The Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, Church of Ireland and Methodist Churches of the Lucan area and Castlethorn Construction are at an advanced stage of planning for a shared place of worshipwhere the Churches will minister alongside each other.  The Churches see great potential in bringing a spiritual dimension and presence to the heart of such a bustling town centre location. Architects, O’Donnell & Tuomey, have worked with the various Church representatives and Castlethorn Construction to design a facility that would incorporate a chapel, oratory, assembly area, meeting rooms and an office.  The place of worship would open onto an urban park area. 

It is an aim of the wider Adamstown Masterplanning Scheme to create a sustainable community, through a holistic approach that integrates land-use and transportation planning.  Adamstown Central is fully integrated with Adamstown’s transport hub being adjacent to the new train station, park & ride facility, the QBC bus service and bicycle parking facilities. A new station concourse building will physically link the train station building with the town centre itself.

The main transport focus is to reduce private car dependency and to maximise public transport usage by incentivising those who choose not to own or use a private car.  This is being achieved through a number of innovative programmes including:

• Early delivery of public transport

• Multi-function car parking (MCFP)

Finfacts Comment:

In 2002, a National Spatial Strategy (NSS) was launched, which set out what was termed a coherent national planning framework for Ireland for the following 20 years. "The NSS aims to achieve a better balance of social, economic and physical development across Ireland, supported by more effective planning," the plan stated.

Gateway cities and hub urban centres were proposed and in December 2003, the then Minister for Finance Charlie McCreevy poured a large dose of gombeenism over the plan with his back-of-the envelope decentralisation plan to move 10,000 civil servants from Dublin to ministers' constituencies.

It's not clear if the NSS has been allowed to have a slow death like many such bold proposals before it, that clashed with the bogman Irish political system.