recent call for engagement<\/a> as part of a preliminary market consultation.\u00a0<\/p>\nThe preliminary consultation is designed to gauge industry appetite before launching a formal procurement process. However, OCP would not be drawn on its involvement.<\/p>\n
The company was previously shortlisted to deliver a 6,000-seat event centre on Albert Quay but withdrew at the final tender stage in 2014.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When asked about its current interest, a spokesperson said: \u201cOCP is not making any comment on anything to do with the Cork Event Centre, and that has been and will remain the company\u2019s position.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cork City Council likewise declined to say whether OCP had made a submission or how many expressions of interest were received. A spokesperson said the council is \u201cvery happy with the level of engagement\u201d, but is \u201cprecluded from discussing any details at this stage of what is a confidential process\u201d.<\/p>\n
Urban Green Private, owners of the Marina Market, has publicly declared its ambition to deliver an event centre on their south docklands site and is understood to have made a submission.\u00a0<\/p>\n
BAM, the construction group with existing planning permission for a 5,000-capacity venue on the former Beamish & Crawford site on South Main St, is also believed to be in the mix.<\/p>\n
In 2007, OCP was ordered to pay \u20ac6m to the city council under a Mahon Point penalty clause for failing to deliver a promised trade centre \u2014 funds that were earmarked at the time for a future event centre in Cork\u2019s docklands.<\/p>\n
In 2014, BAM won a bid for \u20ac20m in State aid funding towards the cost of building an event centre. At that stage, the cost was estimated at \u20ac50.4m. Some 11 years later, the figure is estimated to be closer to \u20ac100m.<\/p>\n
It was decided last year that a new procurement process was required to ensure the project stayed in compliance with EU procurement laws, as the amount of State aid had risen to \u20ac57m, with an additional \u20ac30m to \u20ac40m believed to be required to get the project over the line.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n A project development board<\/a> led by the council was set up to oversee the new procurement process, and a tender was issued for a \u201csuitably qualified consultant\u201d to assemble and manage an expert team tasked with delivering elements of the stalled project in a contract worth up to \u20ac10m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Developer O\u2019Callaghan Properties (OCP) has declined to confirm whether it is among the parties that submitted an expression…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73536,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,79,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-73535","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-cork-news","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}