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Abbey Quarter Project, Kilkenny
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The Abbey Quarter, site of the former Smithwick’s Brewery, is a strategic city centre site located on the banks of the river Nore in the heart of Kilkenny City. The 300 year old brewery was closed by Diageo in 2013. Kilkenny County Council then purchased the site and produced a detailed masterplan for the brewery site and adjacent lands, totalling about 20 acres. With St Francis Abbey at its core, this regeneration project aims to create an attractive, well-designed urban quarter with a mix of uses. These include commercial, residential, enterprise development, recreational and community.
For more information about the project you can visit the council’s website.
The masterplan’s vision is to develop the Abbey Quarter as a seamless complement to the medieval city. It envisages the quarter being an inclusive place for an inter-generational community to work, live and play. The masterplan supports objectives in the Government’s National Planning Framework such as compact growth; enhanced regional accessibility; sustainable mobility; a strong economy, supported by enterprise, innovation and skills; and enhanced amenities and heritage.
The project links the old and the new. A brownfield site (a disused site envisaged for redevelopment) will be transformed through new buildings and the re-use of old buildings. Certain empty spaces will be converted into public spaces. The regenerated area will enhance the city’s Medieval Mile.
The Government has given approval in principal to provide €6.15 million through its Urban Regeneration Development Fund (URDF) to fund significant public realm areas (that is, areas that the public can access) and community and cultural infrastructure projects in the Abbey Quarter. The funding allocation is 75% of the total cost of these works. These include:
The public spaces and parks will become a backdrop to Kilkenny’s many outdoor festivals.
This page will record aspects of the Abbey Quarter Project along its journey. The project will take a number of years to complete. During that time we hope to capture the site’s transformation. Watch this space. Watch progress.
Now that people are calling it their workplace, the Abbey Quarter has a greater sense of place. The Brewhouse Building, a 1960s former Bauhaus-style brewery building and key element of the project, welcomed its first commercial tenants in May.
Sixty staff of O’Neill Foley accountancy firm, which is leasing two units, began working there in May. On Monday 19 September, staff of Tirlán (formerly Glanbia Ireland), the anchor tenant, moved into the building. For 240 of its staff, the Brewhouse will be ‘the office’.
The remaining vacant unit is due to be occupied by the end of 2022. The completed office development, which will accommodate up to 400 staff, will give a much needed boost to the local economy.
Through the URDF, the Government has and is part-funding a number of public realm projects through two URDF funding rounds. Public realm spaces are open, free urban spaces for the public to access and enjoy. They are important because they give people an opportunity to gather, to interact with others and their locality - for a place’s diversity and vibrancy to be celebrated and absorbed.
In 2019, the Government approved €6.15 million of funding. In 2021, it provisionally allocated a further €18.1 million. In May this year, the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Darragh O’Brien TD, officially opened the quarter’s public realm.
Several projects are complete:
The URDF continues to fund development in the quarter. It is now helping to provide:
The new urban street and park will also facilitate the development of the proposed new buildings within the Abbey Quarter site. The next proposed building is likely to be a commercial building consisting of small-scale retail and office spaces.
When the Abbey Quarter is regenerated, these public spaces will integrate this historical quarter with the existing centre of the city. They will connect the existing city with a revitalised area, rich with heritage, new life and opportunities, for people of all ages and interests to enjoy.
Additional housing is needed in Kilkenny. It is an objective of the Abbey Quarter Masterplan to provide residential accommodation in the Abbey Quarter. The Kilkenny Abbey Quarter Development Partnership is currently examining options for delivery of this much needed housing to the city centre site.
The elected members of Kilkenny County Council approved the Abbey Quarter project masterplan in 2015. To ensure the masterplan remains relevant, the council is now reviewing it to see if it needs modifying. The council aims to get the public’s views on the seven-year old masterplan in Quarter 4 2022.
The URDF is funding significant public realm areas in the Abbey Quarter. Why do cities need public realm areas?
“Public realm spaces are, in actual fact, the lifeblood of a city,” says Mark Kennedy, one of the project’s architects. “When we’re designing new cities’ spaces, people tend to think of public space as negative spaces left behind after the building. But in actual fact they’re the most important spaces that you look to create when you’re forming a new, urban quarter.”