New town centre for 21st century in west Dublin

An ambitious town centre on 20 acres is planned for the heart of Adamstown, Dublin's newest suburb. Fiona Tyrrellreports.

A new town centre roughly the size of St Stephen's Green - planned for Adamstown in west Dublin - will have 1,000 apartments, 60 shops, a primary care medical centre and a place of worship shared between four different churches.

Plans for phase one of the €1.2 billion scheme, called Adamstown Central, were unveiled in Dublin city centre yesterday.

Billed as Ireland's first 21st century town, Adamstown Central forms a major building block in the overall Adamstown project, which involves the construction of a new town for 30,000 people on a greenfield site in south-west Co Dublin, on the Dublin-Kildare railway line.

With two primary schools now open with 240 pupils, almost 650 homes occupied and 17 train services taking residents to Dublin city, Adamstown is beginning to take shape.

The new town centre is due to be complete by 2010.

Seven different architects were involved in the design of the new town centre - DMOD, O'Mahony Pike (OMP), O'Donnell + Tuomey, Grafton Architects, Henry James Lyons, HKR and UK-based Metropolitan Workshop.

A number of international consultants were also drafted in for the ambitious project including Norwegian colourist Grete Smedal, car-park specialist Simon Henley and public lighting experts Spiers and Major.

Plans for the scheme were lodged for planning permission with South Dublin County Council this week.

Spread over 20 acres, the planning application for the town centre is one of the largest mixed-use planning applications to be lodged in the history of the state, according to the developer Castlethorn Construction, the largest of the three developers involved in the overall Adamstown project.

Adamstown is Ireland's first Strategic Development Zone (SDZ), designed to speed up the delivery of starter homes.

In exchange for speedy planning approval, developers are required to deliver infrastructure and facilities in tandem with housing units.

The council is expected to make a decision on phase one in eight weeks. Although members of the public don't have a right of appeal under the SDZ, observations can be made to the council in the first five weeks.

Located directly beside the new Adamstown train station, facilities to be provided include 60 shops (including three large anchor stores), office space, leisure centre, swimming pool, eight-screen cinema, pubs, restaurants, a library and several civic squares.

Car-parking will be underground.

The idea is that residents will be able "to work, rest and play in Adamstown", according to Jude Byrne of Castlethorn Construction.

The town is laid out around two public squares with a network of main streets and side lanes. The tallest building will be a 10-storey residential tower which forms part of a mixed-use block that will incorporate a house of worship shared between the Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Church of Ireland and Methodist churches.

Fr John Harnett, the Catholic parish priest for Adamstown, is to move into a duplex apartment in Adamstown soon.

The Health Service Executive (HSE) is planning a new primary care centre which will provide a range of services including public health nursing, occupational and speech therapy, dental and general practitioner services. A non-HSE health provider will also be based at the centre providing diagnostic, orthodontic and counselling services as well as a minor injury clinic.

Facts about Adamstown

Adamstown is on 550 acres which roughly equates to four large 18-hole golf courses or 250 full size soccer pitches

Fourteen per cent of Adamstown will be public open space including three major parks with tennis courts and football pitches and numerous other parks and playgrounds

Three different developers, 10 engineering companies, 15 architecture firms and 55 consultancy firms are working on site

Three primary schools, a 1,000-student secondary school and 1,400 crèche spaces are planned for Adamstown