CORK CITY IS set to have a brand new 6,000-seater convention centre as early as 2016 after the winning €50 million bid was selected by the council.
The Heineken/BAM consortium will develop the centre on the site of the former Beamish and Crawford brewery as part of a wider redevelopment of the quarter.
The winning bid was selected today ahead of another tendered by O’Callaghan Properties led by developer Owen O’Callaghan.
Part funding for the project will be made available by the Government and Cork City Council.
The Cork Convention Bureau has described today’s announcement as “immense” and predicts the opening of the venue will see the value of conventions in the city rise from this year’s €9 million to an estimated €40 million.
Seamus Heaney of the Cork Convention Bureau says, now that the decision has been made, businesses in Cork can already begin negotiations to bring more events to the city:
“We now have the opportunity to go back to our many contacts who are organising larger scale international conferences and we call on our many CCB Ambassadors to reach out to their international contacts who in the past were unable to bring large scale events to the region due to the lack of facilities.”
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say