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SHANNON VALLEY UNDERTAKING MAJOR DEMOLITION PROJECT IN DUBLIN CITY CENTRE across Earl Place. And lastly the five-storey building where the original Sky Café was situated which was a 1970’s add-on, leaving the original basement intact.”
As one of the largest Civil Engineering and Demolition contractors in Ireland, the Shannon Valley Group has undertaken many prestigious schemes down through the years, none more so than their latest challenging demolition project in the busy city centre of Dublin. Various teams from the Shannon Valley Group are virtually working round the clock to ensure both public safety and the preservation of one of O’Connell Street’s most iconic facades, the former Clerys department store. It is over four years since the 165-year-old building was vacated; it was subsequently bought by a European investment group and its partners for more than €60m. Because of the significance and sensitivity of the site which also borders on Marlborough Street, Sackville Place, North Earl Street and Earl Place, the lengthy process to demolish and redevelop it is both complex and challenging. Once the Shannon Valley team has completed its task in ‘soft stripping’ and demolishing part of the huge building, construction and restoration work will get underway, creating hundreds of jobs. The new development, to be called ‘Clerys Quarter’, will include retail space, offices, restaurants, an events venue and a 176-bedroom four-star hotel – and
“The remaining works will be the demolition of five stair cores and lift shafts including the escalator and infill section below the atrium which existed in the original 1920’s scheme, before the additional floor was added. The added roof will also be removed peeling it back to the original roof in the 1920’s build.” significantly, the building’s many historic and architectural features will be restored, including the colonnaded façade, internal staircases, columns and ceilings, the tea rooms and the famous Clerys’ clock. With a completion date set for 2020, teams from Shannon Valley were quickly employed by the main contractor Glenbrier Construction to demolish the present structure; the first phase of what is an eight-month project, the soft strip, has already been finished, with work on the main demolition now underway. Shannon Valley contracts manager Alan Flynn explains: “The main demolition is focusing on two interconnected warehouses, one two-storey and the other three-storey. It also involves removal of a double storey links bridge which connects the warehouses onto the original building
There have been some challenges along the way. Because the offices of Dublin Bus are located adjacent to the warehouses, work on demolishing the link bridge and warehouses had to be carried out after 11pm each night due to obvious health and safety issues. Another challenge was the fact the structure of the link bridge and the warehouses included a lot of steel encased in concrete which had to be cut, and because of the close proximity to other buildings, including a couple of 18th century Georgian townhouses, some of the demolition work has to be done by hand. Two old buildings at the rear of the warehouses facing on to Marlborough Street have been stripped down and converted into offices to accommodate Shannon Valley personnel for the duration of the project.
Soft Strip The soft strip included the removal of all fixtures and fittings, electrical wiring and piping, floor coverings, shelving and other materials from what is said to be the equivalent of seven acres of floor space. Another major issue was the presence of asbestos, the removal of which necessitated the deployment of a specialist contractor. Care has had to be taken to ensure anything of architectural interest within the building has been retained so that it can be eventually incorporated into the new development. At its height, this part of the project, which began in February, has involved up to almost 30 members of the Shannon Valley team, using an array of equipment ranging from jack hammers, core drills, concrete saws, alloy scaffold towers, Brokk’s, rubber duck, excavators, mini
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PLANT & CIVIL ENGINEER
