CONVENTION CENTRE DUBLIN OPENS

Taoiseach Brian Cowen will today officially open the fantastic new Convention Centre Dublin in the Docklands.

The Grand Canal Hotel have been lucky enough to get two sneak hard hat previews of the 8,000 capacity venue and we are really excited about seeing the finished product.

We can verify that, even at its early building stage, it is a truly impressive spectacle and will be a superb addition to the city's infrastructure, offering even better views of the city than the nearby Dublin Wheel.

The centre officially open at noon today with travel agents and other potential clients attending a gala dinner and view the facilities the new venue has to offer this evening.

A further 120 top global conference buyers, who have €500m worth of business on their books are also in Dublin as part of a business drive to coincide with the opening of the Docklands-based centre.

Built at a cost of €380m, the futuristic building on the river Liffey, designed by Irish-born architect Kevin Roche, can accommodate up to 8,000 delegates and includes a 2,000-seat auditorium, 4,500sqm of exhibition space and banqueting facilities for up to 5,000 guests.

Over its six floors, there are 22 meeting rooms, as well as an extensive carpeted room, with capacity for more than 3,000 conference delegates or up to 2,000 diners.
Spencer Dock Convention Centre Dublin Ltd (SDCCD), led by Richard Barrett and Johnny Ronan of Treasury Holdings and Harry Crosbie of the Point Village, will run the centre for the next 25 years until it reverts to State ownership.

The opening of the Centre is the latest boost to the tourism industry in the city, following on from the opening of the O2, Grand Canal Theatre and the Aviva Stadium in recent years. Our regular guest will tell you that we are well placed if you are attending any of these venues as they are only a short stroll from the door of the Grand Canal Hotel.

The first major conference, organised by the Construction Industry Federation, entitled The Economics of Ireland's Recovery, gets under way this Friday, while it is believed that there are up to 300 conferences booked, some for as far out as 2021.

Congratulations to all involved in the building and opening of the Convention Centre Dublin.

NEW DUBLIN MAP

Well it is about time, but it finally looks like Dublin is going to get a quintessential transportation map and would you believe it turns out it is a German who designed it.

Graphic Design student, Aris Venetikidis, arrived in Ireland eight years ago and noticed that it is difficult to navigate your way around Dublin City especially if you are not from the city.

So he set about putting together a complete map of all transport links on one map. He used the iconic London Underground map as the template and after initially finding it difficult to get backing has put together, what the Grand Canal Hotel thinks, is the best and most use full map produced.

Essentially, the map Venetikidis designed includes all bus services and stops, as well as existing and proposed Luas stops, existing Dart stations and the proposed Dart Underground link between Inchicore and Docklands, with intervening stations at Heuston, Christ Church, St Stephen’s Green, Pearse (Westland Row) and Spencer Dock.

Everything is colour-coded, and the 10 bus rapid transit lines proposed by Leahy are given names such as Beckett, Larkin, Stoker and Yeats.

These are shown on a large format map of the public transport network as a whole, then in detail on a separate map of the inner city area, so people can see exactly where they are going.

“Every stop is on it, because you can’t assume that every new user has a working knowledge of Dublin’s geography,” Venetikidis told the Irish Times. “So even Dubliners invited to a friend’s party, for example – all they would have to do is to identify the nearest stop on the map, which is not something they can do now, and then work out the route they need to take.”

As the London Underground map had shown, “a successful integrated public transport map is the key to motivating people to leave the car and make the switch to a sustainable transport mode. Couple that with a modern network of rapid transit and you have the solution to congested city centre streets and an absent infrastructure.”

Check out www.aris.ie for a look at the designs.