Grand Canal Dock
Grand Canal Dock is an urban area on the Southside of Dublin, Ireland. It is located on the border of eastern Dublin 2 and the westernmost part of Ringsend in Dublin 4, surrounding the Grand Canal Docks, an enclosed harbour where the Grand Canal meets the River Liffey. The area has undergone significant redevelopment since 2000, as part of the Dublin Docklands area redevelopment project.
The area has become a tech hub, serving as a popular location for multinational technology firms such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Airbnb; technology firms employed about 7,000 people in the area by 2015. The area has been the subject of debate over the balance of development and gentrification. It has been referred to as Silicon Docks, a nickname which has been the subject of derision over its clichéd nature.
Location
There is no precise definition of the Grand Canal Dock area, but it is generally understood to be bounded by the Liffey to the north, South Lotts Road to the east, Grand Canal Street to the south, and Macken Street to the west. Grand Canal Dock contains Grand Canal Dock railway station and the national Waterways Ireland Visitor Centre.Access
, accessed from Barrow Street, opened in 2001. In early 2014, five new Dublin Bikes stations were opened in the area.History
The Grand Canal Docks first opened in 1796, built to a design by William Jessop. Before this development, from medieval times the area was associated with lepers, as recorded in some of the street names such as Misery Hill and Lazer Lane. At the time they were the world's largest docks. They fell into decline within just a few decades, due mostly to reduced canal usage with the arrival of the railways. The landscape was dominated by Dublin Gas Company's mountains of black coal, along with chemical factories, tar pits, bottle factories and iron foundries. However, bakers and millers maintained business along the southern edge of the inner basin. By the 1960s, the Grand Canal Docks were almost completely derelict.Regeneration
Around 1987 it was decided that Hanover Quay was too toxic to sell. Regeneration began in 1998, when Bord Gáis sold the Dublin Docklands Development Authority the former gasworks site located in the area between Sir John Rogerson's Quay and Hanover Quay, for €19 million. The DDDA spent €52 million decontaminating the land, even though the likely return was estimated at just €40 million. The decontamination took place under the supervision of the Environmental Protection Agency, between 2002 and 2006. The process involved constructing an underground wall eight metres deep around the affected area, and the contaminated soil being dug out and removed. By the time the decontamination was finished, an inflated property bubble and increased demand in the area, allowed the authority to sell the land for €300 million. The DDDA injected some of its new funds into the area's infrastructure including seats, street lighting, and civic spaces.In the wake of the dot-com bubble collapse from 1999 to 2001, IDA Ireland's director of operations in California, Dermot Tuohy, made moves to bring the at-the-time budding tech companies, PayPal, eBay, Overture, and Google to Dublin. In 2002, Google executives agreed to investigate the possibility of opening operations in Dublin. They viewed the Digital Hub in the city centre west, which now houses 900 people and is the location for the European headquarters of companies such as Eventbrite and Etsy. Google's property advisors at the time also alerted them to an alternative location at Grand Canal Dock, identifying the potential of a number of buildings on Barrow Street owned by developer Liam Carroll. Within walking distance from the city centre, the location was seen by the company as having the right mix of factors to attract the type of employee they wanted in Dublin. Google's California offices encouraged a college campus-style atmosphere, something achievable in the Grand Canal Dock location. The visitors decided that once the building, which was still under construction, was complete, they would rent 60,000sq ft of Gordon House on Barrow Street, which they moved into in 2004. It was a choice subsequently seen by those in the IDA as a seismic shift for investment in Dublin. The agency, and many others including senior Google employees, felt the decision was directly responsible for many other Silicon Valley names, such as Twitter and Facebook, choosing to set up shop nearby.
Many of the new buildings around Grand Canal Dock were completed in 2007, just before the 2008 financial crisis. This meant that many of these high-end buildings stood empty in the period of economic uncertainty that followed. Since 2012 in the wake of Ireland's economic recovery, international investors began buying prime office space in the area.
In November 2013, a new fast-track planning scheme was approved by Dublin City Council to allow for docklands buildings of up to 22 floors in height – 50% higher than Dublin's tallest building at the time. The Docklands Strategic Development Zone Planning Scheme gave council planners the power to make decisions that cannot be appealed to An Bord Pleanála, eliminating a source of potential delays for developers. The SDZ represented the first major planning initiative since the 2012 decision to wind up the Docklands Authority, but to retain an appropriate fast track planning framework to complete the Docklands project. Dublin City Council, which took over the Docklands Authority's powers, was determined to encourage the continued development of the 66 hectares, north and south of the river, that comprised the new planning zone. The plan identified five specific development hubs: Spencer Dock, Point Village, Grand Canal Dock, Britain Quay and Boland's Mill. One-third of the overall docklands area – 22 hectares – was earmarked for development. Buildings left uncompleted since the 2008 financial crisis were since completed. Most notably, the former Anglo Irish Bank building, the unfinished skeleton of which was an icon of the 2008 financial crisis, was finished in 2017 by its new owner, the Central Bank of Ireland.
The housing crisis in Dublin, and the marked increase in the cost of living, put pressure on tech firms to retain staff in the Silicon Docks area. Many of such companies began to look elsewhere in Ireland to establish offices where the cost of living is more affordable.
Sites control and planning
On 22 May 2014, it was announced that a fast-track planning process was approved by An Bord Pleanala, with 366,000 square metres of office space and 2,600 homes to be developed across 22 hectares of land in the North Lotts and Grand Canal Dock areas under the Docklands Strategic Development Zone planning scheme. A number of site plan notices were posted in the area including the following:- On 14 October 2014, it was reported that U2 would buy 16 Hanover Quay from the Dublin Docklands Development Authority for €450,000. The authority had forced the band to sell its old riverfront studio on Hanover Quay for an undisclosed price in 2002 to allow the development of the Grand Canal Harbour area. As part of that deal, the authority had promised the band the top two floors of the 32-storey tower it was planning to build on an adjacent quay, a project that was subsequently put on hold. In light of its imminent dissolution and the recent approval by An Bord Plenala for the North Lotts and Grand Canal Planning scheme, the authority decided it would not be proceeding with a proposed compulsory purchase order of 16 and 18 Hanover Quay.
- On 4 December 2014, a site plan notice was posted describing the developments to take place at the Boland's Mill site including retaining and restoring old stone buildings to accommodate retail/restaurant/cafe use, cultural/exhibition use, and residences; and the construction of three new towers to accommodate offices and residences. The notice stated that three new pedestrian routes from Barrow Street, and a new civic waterfront square adjacent to the dock would be created.
- On 12 December 2014, two site plan notices were posted for Targeted Investment Opportunities PLC describing the developments to take place at the former Kilsaran Concrete site at 5 Hanover Quay. One notice was for the construction of a 7-storey office building. The other notice was for the construction of a 7-8 storey building to accommodate residences and mixed-use, including 100 apartments, a leisure centre, and space for 1 retail and 2 cafes at ground level.
Development
Corporate tax incentive
Ireland's low corporate tax rate—just 12.5%--has long attracted entrepreneurs and was once the country's key selling point for foreign business owners. However, the tax implications that companies face in major deals have been described as an "impediment". The headline rate of Capital Gains Tax was 33% as of August 2019.Image:Dublin Grand Canal Basin.jpg|thumb|280px|View of the west inner basin from the top floor of the Montevetro building. The now-regenerated Boland's Mill, Alto Vetro, and The Marker Hotel can be seen.Human capital
In 2012, Citibank's annual list of most competitive cities in the world ranked Dublin as the city with the best "human capital." The city is home to dozens of colleges and universities, including Dublin City University, Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin, and Technological University Dublin.The local talent pool has received a boost from Google, which opened its Dublin headquarters in 2002 and has since been recruiting highly trained tech talent from all around the world, thanks to Ireland's lenient work visa process. As of 2015, Google employs some 3,500 people in Dublin. Facebook, LinkedIn, Fleetmatics and Twitter, among others, employ hundreds more.