Cork City Council intends to shortlist three applicants when it comes to assessing proposals to build a €150 million-plus event centre to attract international artists to the city.
Three consortiums have expressed an interest in building and operating an event centre including Dutch company Bam, whose proposal to build a 6,000-seat arena on the site of the former Beamish brewery on South Main Street was chosen in an initial tender process in 2010.
But the plan, which saw then taoiseach Enda Kenny turn the sod of the proposed development in 2016, never got off the ground due to various design change requirement delays. The company remains committed to the project.
The second confirmed party is developer Tom Coughlan, whose proposal involves the construction of a 4,000 to 5,000-seat facility at his Marina Market food hall site in the Cork Docklands.
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The most recent party to indicate an interest is Cork GAA, whose proposal involves the construction of an exhibition centre which would incorporate a 10,000 to 12,000-seat event centre on the 4G pitch adjacent to its Páirc Uí Chaoimh stadium.
The council confirmed to The Irish Times that, as part of the process to progress the building of a 5,000 to 7,000-seat venue, it has sent out a suitability questionnaire to identify candidates to build the facility.
Cork City Council said in a statement that the document notes that the council “intends to shortlist three applicants but may choose to invite more applicants to participate in the dialogue phase”, which is the next stage in the process.
Cork businessman Michael O’Flynn, a director of Páirc Uí Chaoimh stadium, revealed Cork GAA’s interest at a GAA function in Dublin earlier this month when he said he would “like to see a focus on Páirc Uí Chaoimh for the long-mooted Cork Events Centre”.
Speaking to The Irish Times, O’Flynn said the plan would involve constructing an exhibition centre for trade shows, with a 10,000 to 12,000-seat event centre on the same site.
[ Government backs Cork Event Centre despite 10 years of inaction, Taoiseach saysOpens in new window ]
“The event centre that we are proposing would be incorporated within the larger exhibition centre and it would be twice the size of the other proposal – the experts advising us say that 10,000 to 12,000 capacity is what Cork needs if it is to attract the top international acts,” he said.
In October 2024, the government received legal advice that a new public procurement procedure was required to ensure the State did not breach EU public procurement laws in grant-aiding the project and Cork City Council appointed consultants Aecom to oversee the new procedure.
In January, experts from Aecom, who have overseen the development of comparable event centres in the UK, travelled to Cork and it’s understood that they met the various consortiums including Bam, Coughlan’s Urban Green Private property group and Cork GAA.
Cork City Council had submitted a preliminary business case for the event centre to the Department of Housing, Heritage and Local Government in December 2025 and this month the Cabinet confirmed that it had approved the preliminary business case for the facility.
The minimum estimate of €150 million marked a near-doubling of the cost of the project from the estimated €80 million in 2019. When questioned by The Irish Times if this was solely down to construction inflation, the council said it was not possible to attribute it all to inflation.
“The estimated construction value reflects a range of factors, including benchmark data for comparable projects, the scale and nature of the facility envisaged, the absence of a confirmed site, the absence of a detailed design and inflation assumptions applied to the projected construction period of 2.5 years.”
