Docklands boss sees a capital time ahead of us

Paul Maloney wants to make Dublin's Docklands as attractive for locals and tourists as it has been for companies in the past, writes Claire Shoesmith

There isn't much that fazes Paul Maloney. Playing soccer with the youngsters, meeting with developers or members of the local community and taking a walk around the land that has become his baby for at least the next five years, is all in a day's work for the 48-year-old engineer whose aim is to make Dublin a city that tourists want to visit and Dubliners want to live in.

"It's about all those good things that people go to other cities to see," says the new chief executive of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA). "That's what we have got to recreate here."

Just six months into the job, Maloney, a former Army lieutenant, is still a newcomer. His daily walks around the 520-hectare development are to familiarise himself with the numerous projects going on simultaneously and, where possible, to engage with the local community.

"That's how we are going to be judged," he says. "By how the local community feel they have benefited from the investments we are making. So what they think and how they feel about what we are doing is very important." And meagre investments they are not. Over the next seven years, the DDDA plans to spend at least € 136 million improving the social environment of the area and the total spend for the whole 15-year regeneration project - one that Maloney describes as Europe's most interesting - will be in excess of €7 billion by the time it's complete in 2012.

You would expect Maloney to talk up the project - he is after all its director. But he is no stranger to such developments and, even ignoring his current position, is well qualified to make such a sweeping statement.

Regeneration is somewhat of a buzzword in his career so far, having spent eight years working for Dublin city council and travelling to many parts of the world to see how other towns and cities have improved the most neglected parts of their cities. He's even had a go at it in Lebanon. During his time in the army, Maloney spent six months working as part of the United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon and helped bring essential services, such as basic housing, water and electricity, to the many people struggling to survive in the region.

Compared to that experience, regenerating the Docklands area of Dublin sounds like a doddle. However, challenges can be found everywhere and Dublin is no exception, according to Maloney. The aim of the Docklands regeneration project when it started in 1997 was to turn an area that despite its increasing dereliction was held very dear by the locals but disliked by outsiders, into one where everyone wanted to live, to invest and to do business.

Maloney took on the position of chief executive of the DDDA in June last year after Peter Coyne quit to pursue other interests, a job some may see as taking on another man's dirty work. Much of the building is at least in planning, if not already in construction or complete, and many of the multinational companies that will move into the area over the next few years had decided to set up home there long before Maloney had anything to do with the project.

However, if you ask him, he believes he's been left with the most fun bit of the job. While someone else may have presided over the decision to extend the Luas rail service from Connolly to the Point Depot, or internet search engine Google's announcement that it will increase the size of its European headquarters in Grand Canal Dock, what he gets to do is decide how the local communities are going to interact with these decisions, how exactly the area is going to look and what sort of feel it should have.

"What has been set for me in the first half of the project was very firmly set," he says. "Now I have the opportunity to be totally open and flexible about the nicest part of the development, such as the environments the communities are going to experience. I can see the architecture come to fruition and oversee the whole development without getting caught up in too much minutiae."

By this he means the introduction of annual events such as last month's Christkind Market or the Maritime Festival set to take place this summer. He's also hoping to make the Docklands home to Dublin's Abbey Theatre - it has currently been chosen as the preferred location and a public-private partnership consultation is under way ahead of an expected architectural competition to design the new theatre.

This is on top of housing the national conference centre, the 2,000-seat Libeskind-designed theatre, whose construction is already under way, an expanded Point concert venue with a capacity of 12,000 and the already talked about 100-metre U2 tower.

"We want to create the cultural hub that people love about other cities - a line from Heuston station to the Docklands," he says.

For Maloney, it's a once in a lifetime opportunity to recreate an entire quadrant of a city and one thing that's particularly spurring him on is what he believes he's leaving behind for the young people growing up in Ireland today, including his own children.

"They will be able to make the decision of whether to live in the city centre and walk to work, or live out of town and commute in based purely on what they want to do," he says. "The decision will no longer be swayed by the fact that the quality of family life or homes is better outside of the city."

This is something on which Maloney is adamant. The new modern-style apartments scattered around the Docklands area will be suitable for families with children of all ages, he says.

There will even be some residential units for elderly people that have on-site care services enabling them to stay within their own communities and live independently for longer without being taken into a nursing home.

Another key attribute of the project is to make the idea that people from certain walks of life can't afford to live in the city centre one of the past.

At least 20 per cent of the accommodation built in the area must be what is known as affordable housing.

While this has been a common feature with most new building projects in the UK for the past decade and an absolute requirement in central London, this, according to Maloney, is the first time affordable housing has been a feature of an Irish development project.

One trend Maloney believes is helping the development of the Docklands, is the switch away from out-of-town business parks.

"This trend is now reversing and many companies want to be right in the city centre again," he says. Last month mobile phone group O2 opened their new headquarters on Sir John Rogerson's Quay, and this year several multinational companies, including PricewaterhouseCoopers and McCann Fitzgerald will open offices in the Docklands.

"The economy of Dublin is attractive to these companies," says Maloney.

For Maloney, one other challenge of the project is to reunite north and south Dubliners through the Liffey. He hopes the construction of three additional bridges across the river will not only encourage the city's one million residents to mingle but also to use the river as is common in many other European cities. "We want to reengage Dubliners with the water and get rid of the north-south divide the Liffey creates," he says.

Although the idea of eating out on the banks of the Liffey may not seem overly attractive to you right now, Maloney hopes that by the time he's finished with the project, you will be queuing to eat at one of Europe's top restaurants, sitting at a table on the campshires while watching people rowing boats or even overhearing playful laughter from one of the areas of the Liffey dedicated to swimming. While this image may require a significant stretch of the imagination for even the most creative of Dubliners, Maloney is confident of his targets.

Still, even he admits that some parts of the project have a way to go, and one can't helpbut think that his main challenge lies with the mental rather than the physical aspects of the development.

Dublin may be on the same line of latitude as Hamburg, but whether it can adopt the same European city sentiment remains to be seen.

Factfile

Name: Paul Maloney

Age: 48

Career: Took over as chief executive of DDDA in June 2006 after working at Dublin city council for eight years. Prior to that he worked as a project manager with the Department of Environment on IT projects.

He started his professional career in the Army, where he was a captain in the Defence Forces' Engineering Corps, as well as serving as a lieutenant with the UN in Lebanon.

Education: Studied engineering at undergraduate level at UCG, followed by an MSc in the same subject from Trinity College, Dublin. Became a chartered member of the Institute of Engineers in 1989.

Family: Married with three children.

Hobbies: Playing golf and five-a-side soccer, which he plays every week with other people at the DDDA. Goes to the gym daily.

Why he's in the news: This is the start of his first full year as chief executive of the DDDA and people will want to see what he can do for the remaining six years of the project.