City Council chief says Cork Event Centre will be up and running within three years 

The chief executive of Cork City Council has said she believes the long-awaited event centre will be up and running within three years, in time for the tenth anniversary of the now infamous 2016 sod-turning.

Ann Doherty, who has been Cork city’s chief executive since 2014, was asked by The Echo if she thought we would have an event centre by 2026.

“Yeah, I do, absolutely,” Ms Doherty replied.

Noting that the project would likely have a construction period of approximately two years, Ms Doherty said there had always been “gateways” in the project, milestones at which decisions had to be made.

“We’re now at that final milestone, so what will the final costs be, and there will be a decision needs to be taken and I can’t tell you what the final cost is going to be because I actually don’t have it,” she said.

Ms Doherty warned that the final cost of the event centre would be impacted by price inflation in the construction industry.

“That is a gateway of decision, but I would believe that the economic benefit and the value long-term for Cork far outweighs [that additional cost].” Ms Doherty suggested that the event centre would bring benefits not just to Cork, but would attract visitors here who would go on to spend money in the rest of the country as well.

She said she agreed with Minister Simon Coveney’s recent statement that the €1.5m of taxpayers’ money already spent on the event centre, without a single brick being laid, was “an investment in the future”.

“In any capital project that’s being delivered, there is a huge amount of money that goes into the planning, the design, the contracting, which is the front end of any project before any brick goes on the ground, because you have to be sure that you’re building the right thing, in the right place, at the right time, within the right financial envelope, and, yes that costs money to do,” Ms Doherty said.

“I would be concerned if you were saying to me ‘Why haven’t you spent any money on the events centre', because that would have a completely different ramification.” 

Live Nation

Ms Doherty said that since the first days of the project, there had been the Covid-19 pandemic, price inflation, and impacts on the events industry.

“What’s important is that we have Live Nation on board who are the number one live entertainment company in the world, so great kudos to Cork to attract them,” she said.

“They are very specific, in the sense of they will not do anything until everything is sorted, agreed, priced designed, which is actually a good way to do business, because then you don't end up after the event with hidden things coming forward or costs that people didn't anticipate.

“Obviously Live Nation are the owners of the event centre, and from their perspective, there’s none like it in the world, it is a venue that has never been created before according to the Live Nation personnel,” Ms Doherty said.

She said Live Nation had just completed the detailed design and was finalising pricing, “and then that will come to us and then we will be validating that”.

Ms Doherty added that it was important that people understood this was not a capital project being delivered by the State, but rather it was a capital project being delivered by a consortium with some State funding.

“But, in order to ensure that we get the best value for the State’s investment, we will be going through, when we receive the final bill of quantities, a validation process and we have retained experts to do that,” she said.

“The purpose of the event centre is as an economic driver. 

"It’s an employer and also will drive huge economic activity for the city, in the food and beverage, in the hotel, in the retail, in everything, because of the nature of the activity it will bring.” 

Ms Doherty stated that in making the business case for the event centre, it was important to understand that it had the potential to offer a huge return to the exchequer from all of “the tax-paying employees and rate-paying businesses that will develop, and then from all those visitors that will come and spend their money in the city".

“The economic case still stacks and stacks really, really well,” Ms Doherty said.