The long-delayed millennium spire planned for O'Connell Street in Dublin is likely to be erected early next year, becoming the most visible symbol of a civic determination to change the fortunes of Ireland's main street.
The city manager, Mr John Fitzgerald, said yesterday Dublin Corporation would also be availing of new powers in the 1999 Planning Bill to reverse the tide of burger joints, amusement arcades and pound shops that had dragged the street down in recent years.
He was speaking at a press briefing on the publication of a detailed environmental impact statement (EIS) on the proposed Monument of Light, otherwise known as "The Spike", a stainless steel needle rising to a height of 120 metres on the site once occupied by Nelson's Pillar. Mr Fitzgerald said the corporation was anxious to see the u£3 million-plus project going ahead as quickly as possible, though he accepted that it was not going to be erected before the end of this year - even if it won speedy approval from the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey. An archaeological excavation of the site would also be needed.
The fate of this central element in the corporation's u£40 million rejuvenation plan for O'Connell Street now rests in the hands of the Minister following a further round of public consultations on the EIS, which goes on public display today for four weeks at the Civic Offices.
The need for an EIS was established by a High Court judgment last July in a judicial review case taken by Mr Micheal O Nuallain, one of the 205 entrants in an open competition held by the corporation in 1998 to find a suitable civic monument for the pillar site.
Prepared by a study team led by McHugh Consultants, the EIS was broadened to include the plan to create a "plaza" in front of the GPO. This would involve widening the footpaths, reducing the number of traffic lanes and planting clipped lime trees to define the new space.
Although the proposed "conical spire" designed by Mr Ian Ritchie, a London-based architect and engineer, would be slighly more than twice the height of Liberty Hall, the EIS concludes that its slimline form would make it practically imperceptible from distant vantage points.
Its visual impact on O'Connell Street itself and on the axis formed by Henry Street/Mary Street and North Earl Street/Talbot Street would be "significant", according to the authors. But they insist it would enhance rather than detract from, historic buildings in the vicinity.
"The design concept of the new monument. . .is clearly based on the traditional form of obelisk, which since the 17th century has been one of the most common features of the great ceremonial spaces of European cities." It would serve as a "dramatic foil" to horizontal buildings.
While there has been no reduction in the height of the monument, the proposed spiral of "pulsating mercury" at its three-metre base has been replaced by a circle of bronze, seven metres in diameter. For the GPO "plaza", the footpaths will be granite and the carriageway asphalt.
At night-time, the monument will be floodlit from the roofs of nearby buildings and from its base. Light will also project up through the hollow stainless steel structure to emerge at the pointed top, turning it into a beacon with no need for the addition of aircraft warning lights.
This will make the monument visible from a number of vantage points, symbolically marking the centre of the city. The EIS also suggests that the project will draw many more visitors into the O'Connell Street area, with spin-off benefits for local retail and commercial activities.
Traffic would have to be reduced to two lanes in each direction to make room for a construction compound on the centre island for a period of six months. This would also require the removal of the underground toilets and the "temporary" partial removal of the Anna Livia fountain.
The new monument would be welded together within the compound and then erected over a single weekend, when O'Connell Street would be closed to traffic.
Referring to the controversy which the Monument of Light generated after it was first unveiled, the city manager said this was inevitable whenever something dramatic was proposed.
