Opera Centre
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The Opera Centre is a planned shopping centre in Limerick City, Ireland. The development has received the go-ahead from An Bord Pleanala. Intended as a development for the city centre, one of the entrances will face the river at Bank Place, the other entrance will be on the junction of Patrick Street and Ellen Street. The complex has been named by the developers in honour of Limerick's famous "rags to riches" 18th century soprano Catherine Hayes. The most striking aspects to the design of the Opera Centre are the two modern glass fronted entrances, set to become the flagship features. Other plans include the building of a stand alone three storey café / bar and restaurant with landscaped plaza and decking at Bank Place. The other stand-out feature to the multi-million development is the "Sky Bridge", a glass and steel pedestrian bridge, which will link a new multi-storey car park on Denmark Street with the centre at Ellen Street.
The project will involve the demolition of a substantial number of historic Georgian buildings. This has raised heritage concerns given that Limerick has the largest collection of Georgian architecture in Ireland outside of Georgian Dublin. In some cases the facades will will be maintained but in general the outside perimeter will house service corridores. As a result, Patrick Street, Ellen Street and Micheal Street are likely to suffer a significant drop in footfall as the business and retail entrances dissappear from these streets. The inward facing nature of the development has been criticised as been retrograde; in contrast, most newer inner-city shopping centre plans (for example that planned for Arnotts (Dublin) or the redevelopment of the ILAC centre) attempt to face outwards adding life to the existing streets.
The project has been dubbed the largest shopping centre in Munster.
Construction is due to begin in the autumn of 2006.
