← The Urbanist
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- [00:04]
A
I put Real Estate is Dublin's leading property investment company. For almost 60 years a custodian of the city, embracing excellence in design, sustainability and occupier experience. More than that I put understands that real change means transforming how valuable, vibrant and loved a neighborhood is. Discover how they build and invest. Head to I put.com now and and learn about their passion for their projects and their unique presence in Dublin. I put Creator of exceptional places Custodian of the city. Hello and welcome to Esper edition of the Urbanist, Monocle's programme all about the built environment. I'm your host Andrew Tuck.
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B
Coming up, an office is an office is an office. What makes an office or a location or a workplace a place is that emotional connection, that human interest. And I think unless you have that, you can't differentiate yourself.
- [01:13]
A
Today we explore Wilton park, one of the flagship projects from IPUT, Dublin's leading property investment company. Spanning a whopping 600,000 square feet, the development has been carefully assembled by IPUT over the past decade. And while at first glance this might look like just another great office project, take a closer look and dedication to placemaking and quality of life starts to emerge. A one acre park open to the public connects the entire project. New pathways and public furniture along the canal extend the public realm. And even artists studios are there to help propel a new wave of talent in the city. To explore it all, Monocle's collateral headed to the Irish capital to hear how Wilton park can act as a catalyst for change in the city. This is the Urbanist.
- [02:11]
C
It takes more than just great architecture and design to create a new part of a city. Sure those help, but having a long term vision, attention to detail and a true sense of community tend to be the details that make all the difference. Which is why I wanted to stop by Wilton park in Dublin to see how it aims to do precisely that. Despite the mildly gray sky on arrival, the area was busy. People running along the canal, sitting in the park, having a chat, meetings by the coffee van in the square and a constant flow of pedestrian traffic. The neighbourhood was full of life. It's no Wonder then that three global firms, LinkedIn, Stripe and EY have all chosen Wilton park for the new headquarters. My guide for this peek behind the scenes is Niall Gaffney, I put's chief executive.
- [03:00]
B
Wilton park is exactly as it says in the tin. It's a park. It's a triangular one acre park next to the Grand Canal in Dublin. It was historically known as Bagatonia, a Georgian residential area synonymous with great Writers, artists. It was a cheap place to live back in the 50s and 60s. So people like Patrick Kavanagh, Brendan Behan and obviously Mary Lavin. And we've named a square here after Mary Lavin. So we have demolished 1980s office precinct that had become quite sterile, very nine to five, five days a week. The park was locked at the weekends. We have gone and redeveloped that into a 600,000 square foot mixed use development centred around the one acre park and overlooking the canal. And we renovated and opened the park before we completed the office development or the mixed use development. We reopened the park. We put 80 deck chairs in. And that small gesture is probably the most impactful gesture that we have done in terms of place making and establishing Wilton park as a place in the local community, in people's consciousness.
- [04:02]
C
Was that a signal that was so important to, I guess, establish trust from the very beginning?
- [04:07]
B
Absolutely. I think you hit the nail on the head. The first thing we did to build trust was to reopen the park. We had a fountain, a Victorian fountain in the middle of the park that was filled with soil and plants. It was effectively neglected. So we, in our planning process, committed to restore the fountain. So today we now have a working fountain, beautifully finished, lit at night. We have new walkways, graveled walkways, completely, completely new planting regime that's got great seasonality, but it's got seven days a week access. And I think we've just let the neighborhood just rediscover the park.
- [04:43]
D
My name is Christopher Kelly. I live in the mews. 1 Ladlane, Dublin 2 I've lived here for 20 years. I have three kids, one wife and a dog. Over 20 years, in some ways, delaying had not really changed that much. Obviously the old building would have effectively turned us back to the lane. You know, it would have ignored the lane and it would have looked out to the front. The lane would have nearly been seen as a negative. While this building does not turn its back to the lane, it overlooks the land. It's substantially increased the public realm in terms of the size of the footpaths. Obviously the whole road has been resurfaced. So just practically the change now in the last five years, or the change in the last two years as the building is kind of coming to an end, has actually been revolution. Really kind of important for me because little things like broken car windows don't happen anymore. Like, I used to see broken car windows every two weeks in the lane. I've had that car smashed into, I'd say four or five times. It hasn't happened over the last few years because the lane has got busier, it's got people overlooking the lane. So that practically kind of security has been a, you know, a huge improvement. So it's the activity and the multi use activity that is people here in the evening, there's people here in the morning, there's people here in the daytime. And that multi use activity is the thing that in my opinion brings, you know, kind of a good public realm and a good safe environment for people to be out and. But so huge improvements, just practically for the residents, you know, huge improvements.
- [06:07]
C
One could maybe think that having a big building show up next to, you know, low rise, established properties that that could cause some friction. But perhaps because of not turning its back towards the lanes, having the park that's open to the public, all of that has helped to avoid that scenario.
- [06:24]
D
Yeah, no, no, definitely. Like you do have a six, seven story building fronting onto two story muses. So in some ways that's not maybe what people would expect. But look, I'm in the middle of Dublin city here. If I think I'm going to have cottages around me, I'm in the wrong place. You know, I'm. This is a European capital city and I am personally pro development and this is me a great example of being pro development. What you know, you can get as a result of that. Now to be fair, I put were very good during construction, looking after me, you know, in terms of practical things like cleaning cars, noise complaints, you know, things like that. They were at a human level. Good. So no, to me that friction you talk about kind of can't exist in a city, you know, because in the city we have to kind of expect change expectations, growth, expect things to go up rather than to stay the same.
- [07:14]
C
Now we're here standing right in front of the gate for the muse and as soon as you open them, you see the art in the covered passageway. Has that impacted your mood? Like we often hear about, you know, landscaping and art helping people, you know, feel better about where they live. How has that impacted you?
- [07:30]
D
I do love the piece of art there, which is kind of unique. And I remember being in a meeting with Iput and the reference was made to some kind of surprise and I didn't really, really large at the time. But you know, when I saw the piece of art, whatever, maybe a few months later, I understood what the gentleman from IPO was saying to me. But in an odd way, the two things that I most enjoy here, which is going to sound a little bit funny is there's a man who goes around with an outdoor vacuum cleaner on the lane, hoovering up, you know, the leafs and all the stuff like that. And if you look at the lane, it's quite clean actually. And the other thing is the lads power hose, the lads are constantly power hosing. And I'm sitting in there and I'm hearing the sounds of someone power hosing on a Friday and vacuuming the lane, going, I have nothing to do, you know, like, because historically I would have to come out and brush the lane and you know, just to clean my area, my section type of thing if it got too messy, you know, because you'd be waiting a long time for someone else to do it. So they are two things that I do love. Yeah, the outdoor vacuum cleaner and the power washing, you know, but you, yes, all the landscaping and all that are beautiful as well. And you know, I do like to point out to people that this is all looked after by somebody else. This has got nothing to do with me. Immaculately looked after, you know, so that's the benefits of having a high quality development beside you and long may it last. You know.
- [08:49]
B
We'Re doing some research called make an Impact which is trying to establish over a five year period what the impact of this place, making this investment in public realm over and above the norm has done to improve the socio economic value of the neighbourhood. You know, we're measuring footfall, we're measuring both good and bad reaction to things we did. Like when we closed the park, it was a very negative reaction. Obviously we've reopened the park, it's been quite positive. But equally the sculptures we put in the water, in the fountain, the resurfacing of the dog park, that it's an all weather dog park, all of these incremental changes have had a positive impact and built trust with the local neighbourhood, but also with people using the buildings. They can see we're for real, that we're here for the long term and we want to see good outcomes, we want to see quality of life improve for everybody in the neighbourhood.
- [09:44]
E
My name is Marie Hunt and I'm head of research at iput. The study is called Making Impact and we really feel this development is making impact in the city in a few different ways. We've always looked at it through the prison, the four key pillars, so economic, environmental, social and cultural. Because we felt that it's a blend of all of these things that make a great place. And while we have many buildings in our portfolio, this particular development was the ideal one. To use as a test case for this study, because we were going to be involved for a number of years and we had an idea of doing a longitudinal study where we could track performance over time. And really what we're trying to do is to quantify the impact when you do public realm and place, making really well, what are the impacts of that? And usually when people do social value assessments or studies, it's at a particular point in time, maybe to support a planning application or something like that. So what's different about this study is we are committing to the do it for five years. We've published two reports already, we're about to publish the Year three results, but we've two more years to go. And I always describe it almost like a jigsaw in that the pieces are all coming together, we're getting really good results. And also a key part of the study is we learn what's working, what's not working, and we can make amendments to the scheme then, based on the feedback we're getting for the local community.
- [11:05]
C
What are some of the learnings you've had so far about what is working for the community, what the community wants?
- [11:10]
E
Well, right behind us in the park here is a dog park. So when we started doing the initial research in year one, we discovered that quite a lot of the local community have dogs and this was the only green space that was available to them. So we had, on the one hand, trying to attract more children into the park, on the other hand, lots of dogs off leashes running around the park. So we came up with the idea of hiving off this special area as a bespoke dog park, which would contain all of the dogs in that particular area. And the owners are really happy with it because it allows them to let their dogs off the leash and run free. And it has worked really, really well. But that's just one example of something where we tweaked the design based on the feedback we were getting, both from intercept surveys and also discussions with the local stakeholders and the local community.
- [11:56]
C
And also there was that interesting moment where you had to close the park and then you reopened it. And you saw how the community reacted to that too.
- [12:05]
E
Yeah. And that was probably a challenging thing for us to do. So in the year one report, we had really good public reaction, 8.7 out of 10 in terms of public perception of the space and the public realm here. And when we closed the park, inevitably, public perception went down. We were in the midst of construction, the park was closed for about a year. So that Amenity was taken away from the public and we saw public perception going down to 6, 0 point. So it was difficult for us to see perception of our scheme going back. But we did it because we felt that it would deliver in the long term. And thankfully, when we've done the year three research, it's gone back up to 9.3. So it's higher than it was to start with. And the other thing is the number of unique visitors to the park and the general area has doubled since we started this study.
- [12:52]
C
What has surprised you the most when making this study?
- [12:54]
E
We've had lots of really interesting learnings. I suppose the one that always resonates with me me is that sometimes to do public realm and placemaking really well, you don't necessarily have to spend a huge amount of money because some of the initiatives that haven't cost a lot have probably been the most impactful. And an example of that would be the deck chairs that you see in front of you here in the park. I know it's something you'd see regularly in London parks, but it's not something we've seen in an Irish context until we started to do it here. And it proves hugely popular, particularly in good weather. That's a really simple intervention that had big impact. So I suppose that was a key learning from the study. I think we've also learned as well that to do public realm and placemaking really well, you also need to have governance and you also need to curate the space. So we would often have events here during the summer. So we would have events for dogs in the dog park, we would have yoga running throughout the summer. There's been lots of cultural events. So it's not good enough to put public realm in place and then just leave it. You absolutely need to govern the park and curate it over time to have maximum impact.
- [14:01]
B
The attraction of global occupiers like Stripe, this is their dual global HQ in Dublin into a landmark building. Number one Wilton Ey have moved here. They're now fitting out. It's their first move in 40 years in Dublin. Again, they hope to have 2005 people working here and then we've LinkedIn in the balance. So we've got three global brands attracted to this location and what's attracting them is that quality of life, that opportunity to have engagement seven days a week with nature, with stimulation and with a partner in Iput that believes in long term human centered design.
- [14:38]
F
My name is Chris Kelleher. I am the regional director for workplace operations for LinkedIn. We've been based here for 15 years, originally as a startup. We started in Sir John Rogerson's Quay. Then we reached about 40 people and in roughly 2010 took over a floor of the old Wilton Plaza building. So this has been our home for many years. We subsequently built Wilton 5 in the corner and then when Ipush purchased the rest of the portfolio, they shared with us our plans to develop. So the real estate team then did a deal to lease actually all four buildings at that time. Now we scale that back to kind of one and a half buildings, so we four and half of building three. At the moment we have approximately 1,800 employees. We'd also have another maybe 200 contractors and then another 200 to 250 on site services.
- [15:33]
C
It is really interesting to hear just the scale of it because obviously we know that working in a city has changed so much post pandemic, what that looks like. And this commitment, you know, still being in an office of quality that is delivering something to the city is interesting to see. How does that work for the company internally? How does that help with employee culture, community building within the team? Talk to us a bit about the importance of the location.
- [16:00]
F
I'm biased, like, I think we're in one of the most beautiful places parts of the city. We have the canal right in front of us and we're sitting in a beautiful park and now we have five stunning buildings behind us and we're nicely nestled in the outskirts of the cbd. So from a commute point of view, it's quite easy. So I actually drive in in the mornings, but you have the Lewis and the Dart kind of either side and then there's plenty of bus corridors. So in terms of physically getting people into the office, it really, really works. Well. Our employees are relatively young. Most are in their early to mid-30s now. So socially the location is really important. So if they want to go socialise in Baggot street or if they want to go into the city centre, it's really easy for them to do that. Apart from that, we have world class facilities, so we're very spoilt. We have a very good food and beverage program which is free for employees. There's very few reasons not to come into the office and there's gyms, etc. As well, and lots of parking.
- [16:57]
C
Now, of course, having F and B for employees could be tricky when in a development they're trying to build F and B for people to come in as well. But it's much more than that, isn't it? Even today Walking around, we saw so much of, you know, from the coffee van over there, from this very park. People who do not even work in the area come in and use the space. Does that really help in this I guess feeling of being connected to this city in having not just an exclusive place just for the tenants of Wilton Place?
- [17:26]
F
Absolutely. I think the resources that I put are putting in place complement our FMB program. I know there's been talks about maybe a bakery or something like that going in. You can imagine that smell wafting around the park. You know you're going to go there before you go home. It's just going to happen. So I see people naturally migrating to those things. Or if there's a gym, maybe if they do Pilates or something like that. Again, it will complement what we're doing. We're not competing. LinkedIn as a company wants to create kind of economic opportunity for everyone. So we don't want to be that insular that people just stay and just use our resources and then go home. We want them to contribute to the community and to the environment. And during the summer especially the amount of people that come out here into the park, use the fabulous deck chairs and just sit out and socialize and they grab a of couple coffee or they'll go across on the Thursdays when the market is there and they'll grab something there because people like variety.
- [18:19]
C
What is the place of the development in the public areas that you spend the most time or that you enjoy spending the most time in?
- [18:25]
F
I spend too much time at my desk or in meetings. But I do love the park. I sometimes come out, just do two or three laps of the park just to clear my head. And it's great the remodeling that's happened here. You used to not be able to walk close to the canal because it would flood. And even the cranes were getting confused because we'd fly over and it would literally be trying to fish on the footpath. The flooding would be that bad. But now with all of the groundworks that have been done, it's water free. So it's just a great place to come out and clear your head, walk around. Whether it's an autumnal day today with the leaves on the ground or a summer day, it's just great to have that ameen she close by. So the park is my favorite thing.
- [19:05]
B
When you think of a neighbourhood, you think of a streetscape. You think of the hustle and bustle of a street. In that context you have people from different walks of life. You have independent retailers, you have art shops, you have independent shops. So we're trying to bring in elements that as much as we can. We have 30,000 square feet here, so we don't have a huge amount to play with, but it's to try and bring that streetscape that's seven days a week to life. So as part of this finished development, we've put in three purposes built artist studios at lower ground level with an exhibition space and a community space. And that's permanent, that's in the fabric of this building. And we're giving over three residencies, two year residencies, to artists to work here. We did that in conjunction with the Royal Hibernian Academy. So we now have three artists in residence. We also have a writer in residence in the Georgian apartments that we own nearby. And all of this is to your point, about actually showing the community at large that we're serious about building on the legacy that's been here going back 50 years, which is a rich artistic, cultural, human heritage that we shouldn't overlook. Because an office is an office is an office. What makes an office or a location or a workplace a place is that emotional connection, that human, human interest. And I think unless you have that, you can't differentiate yourself.
- [20:28]
G
I am Siobhan o'. Callaghan. I am a visual artist. I work mainly in paint. I am currently one of the artists in residence at the Wilton park studio supported by IPUs.
- [20:40]
H
My name is James Early. I am an artist based in Dublin. I predominantly make large scale public works that base themselves around material quality of stained glass.
- [20:48]
C
We wanted to speak with you under this covered passage because this is exactly the place of your installation and your work. Could you describe what we are seeing in front of us, this piece of work?
- [20:59]
H
It's called Signs of Life. It's my third collaboration and most ambitious with iput. And it is a large scale glasswork that is a ceiling. It forms the ceiling of a link between Lad Lane and. And the square behind us here, Mary Lavin's place. What you're seeing is a large abstract artwork that takes its inspiration from the canal. And the idea is it plays with the idea of the way we view the piece. We're looking up at the skies and it plays this idea of when you look into the reflection of the water in the canal, it reflects the stars at night. So it's like an aspirational piece.
- [21:38]
C
And Siobhan, turning to you now, as you mentioned in your introduction, you are one of the artists in residence here. It is quite a curious Thing for a development of this size to have when you are sandwiched in between tenants like stripe and LinkedIn to also have artist studios. How important has that been for you as an artist to have a creative space in the center of the city within a development like this?
- [22:00]
G
So I was fortunate enough back in, I think it was 2021 to be selected for one of the Rha iput studios just around the corner from where we are now. So I got to see this development in the earlier days and then was invited to return to the new studio at the start of the summer here. So there's been quite a transformation and it's been really great to see how much I put have centered artists and creative work in this. I have a number of extended family members who work in tech and I never expected to be downstairs from them, but lo and behold, they're across the road from me. They're literally directly above my studio. And I think it's really valuable to build artists spaces into these settings that they might not otherwise be and to remind people of the value of culture and creativity in our everyday lives.
- [22:48]
C
And I guess for both of you it's also like a nod to the artistic roots of this neighborhood. How important is it to have this connection back to art and to ensure that people know that despite, you know, the modernity, despite the glossy finishes, that, you know, art still has a role to play in public life.
- [23:07]
H
Like you're definitely preaching to the converted here. The more public art the better. I fully, fully believe in that. And I think it's amazing that I put such weight behind. You know, it's really, really important because like you said, you can have spaces that have a lot going on amenity wise. But to have like that depth of culture that art brings is very, very important.
- [23:28]
G
Yeah, I think it's wonderful that I put are celebrating our artistic heritage and bringing forwards. I think it's really easy as Irish people to be proud of our culture and the oversized output that we have, the impact we have on an international scale. But I think it's easily forgotten that it is really important to support living artists and like that to center them in a place that, to be honest, Dublin is not particularly affordable for creative people. Over recent years we have seen fewer and fewer studio spaces and it becoming more difficult for creatives to support themselves in Dublin. So it's really vitally important that not only for artists, these spaces are available to both work in and to showcase our work, but also as a reminder to the people in the area that we exist and that there is value in it.
- [24:18]
C
Now you did mention that a great inspiration for the piece that we are overlooking here today was the canal. Is this an area of the city where traditionally you'd be inspired in your work or are you quite specific when approaching these large scale projects of trying to center yourself in the area?
- [24:37]
H
I think it's exactly that, the latter. When I'm doing a large scale piece that is first base, it's very much side space. So it definitely draws inspiration from the space that it occupies and very much with the mindset of I create the work, it's there. But ultimately it's the people that experience it and that live around the area that take ownership over it. So there's always like a very, very strong sense of just conscientiousness about its placement and who's going to be experiencing.
- [25:05]
F
It day to day.
- [25:09]
B
I think what gives us a real kick is kids coming in here with their dog, walking around, taking in the biodiversity to nature, kicking the leaves that are now falling, enjoying the fountain, just being stimulated by that. That's a real joy because these people are just passersby. It's local people engaging with the neighborhood in a real way. The fact that the users of the buildings will also benefit from that is, is a nice to have. But it's weird to see people, you know, like we see here. Someone's brought their dog into the park, they're having a little roll around, a little scratch, you know, it's just great to see. And they're not working here per se. They're enjoying an amenity that we have, I suppose had the vision and had the belief and had the resources to do. We've seen it in other places around the world. And that's why some of the people working with us, like Maylam, who have been very active in London, have Irish roots. We brought them back to do Wilton park for us because of their experience and they've just delivered in spades for us. And the quality of the finishes in our park and our landscaping has drawn people in.
- [26:15]
I
I'm Thomas o' Mahoney or o' Mahoney in Ireland and I'm managing director and owner of Maylam limited. We got involved, I suppose way back about four years ago as a contractor, which was very unusual for a developer to get in contractor involved so early. We've done a lot of projects in UK likes the Passive Power Station, the likes of Kings Cross. And I suppose the partnership started with IPUT coming to see us. They wanted some of our kind of inspiration on how we can develop their design with the architects and kind of develop really good spaces. And, yeah, I think we've done a fairly decent job here. You know, I think when we left to come over here, you know, we could not see any kind of quality of this kind of standard here. And I think with IPUT's kind of aspiration and the kind of dream of this is what we want to do. It really enticed us to come over to Dublin, because it's our first job in Dublin to really entice to do this type of landscaping. But it's a great scheme to be.
- [27:00]
C
Involved in now, obviously, you know, having the park as part of the development and by the canal, the Grand Canal, it almost seems like it would be inevitable to have great landscaping. But that didn't say just on the ground floor. It was also important that all levels of the building sort of reflected out where possible.
- [27:17]
I
Yeah, I think you've got to look at the big shift, and I think a lot from COVID is people want good offices. They're coming back to offices and they want good spaces, they want terraces so people can walk out from their offices and enjoy kind of the environment, the biodiversity, the plants, the flowers. They can sit here at lunch break and look around. You wouldn't believe you're in a city. I think that's the big shift. And I think I put. Saw that. And to create an office space where you've got seven terraces, every terrace has almost got its own little landscape space which is private. You can sit down, you can have functions, you can socialise, or you just can enjoy reading a book at lunchtime. And it's great, you know, and to bring that to the terraces. And a lot of the actual. The value of the project is actually on the terraces. And the difficulties on the terraces, the logistics of trying to get this built with cranes through the actual how it's built. But it's a fantastic scheme.
- [27:58]
C
There's two elements here. One is the sustainability and resilience side of it, and the other is the plants and the species. And even I saw a birdhouse when we were walking around. So the fact that it's all aspects of biodiversity that were considered. So maybe let's tackle that first and then we come to the sustainability and resilience.
- [28:17]
I
Yeah, look at biodiversity here. I suppose they did a kind of a survey of actually the amount of bees and plants you look at through the summer here. This was alive, you know, absolutely live and from a site which was. Go back 10, 15 years ago, when it Was just a kind of boring office space. You look at now, it's the birds, the bees, the insects, the kind of little insect houses we've got around here. It's just created a complete new zone of landscape on a roof in the middle of Dublin city. You know, it's stunning. We worked with the actual landscape architect, which is Townsend, who are a London based architect who their kind of vision with the likes of IPOR is to create this. And it's worked very well.
- [28:48]
C
And at a time that, you know, more and more developments and developers are being considered about, you know, climate resilience and you know, this idea that also landscaping plays a vital role in absorbing the rainwater, in lowering how hot the pavement can get. That was a big consideration here as well.
- [29:05]
I
Yeah, because if you look at here on the roofs here, all the water here is irrigation from the graze supply undau all the paving here is like attenuation. So it holds the water in place, it keeps the water in the planting. So it's almost like it's self recycling the water back into the plant itself. And it works very well. A lot of materials here are locally sourced. The timbers are locally sourced from Ireland, the paving is locally sourced, the steel is locally sourced. So the consideration here of actually using local suppliers and local, local plants and keeping the actual divider diversity in the water on the roof, it works very well.
- [29:32]
C
I'm curious, you know, seeing the space being so active and used by the whole community, how does it make you feel on a day like today when we were just downstairs and so many people, you know, while it was still sunny, sitting in the sun loungers and enjoying the park, but also, you know, taking advantage of all this environment that you carefully curated.
- [29:49]
I
Yeah, I think it's a special place. As a UK contractor with an Irish name and I'm from island to come back and do the projects in London and then come back to a developer who's got the focus of this kind of quality and then come here and see what you've created. And I come to Dublin probably every two weeks. I always walk past here and always walk through here, you know, through the various times of spring and summer and it just brings a lot of people, you know, and I've been here weekends and you've got families enjoying playing little games on the lawn, you know, you've got people walking through, reading their books, the deck chairs. Yeah, it's a special place, especially special place for me. And there's not many projects. I think you kind of look at projects where You've delivered your life like King's Cross and you're creating these lovely little kind of great urban spaces. But here, this is special.
- [30:33]
B
Across the road here is the Grand Canal, very historic canal in Dublin. We collaborated with Waterways Ireland. It's not our property, it's public property. And we approached Waterways Ireland and said, could we replicate the finishes of our park along the canal? It'll be a major draw. It'll actually bring the canal, the public space into the park and just blur the lines between, you know, the commercial space and the public realm. And they did. And over a two year period, we agreed a design and now we have a nice graveled walkway and you can see how busy the canal is on a day like today. People are using it for running. There's a huge volume of people use this area. We've gone from about half a million unique visitors to this park in 2022, 2023, to where we are today. And the park only reopened in October last year to about 1.2 million visitors. And the F and B hasn't opened yet. We're setting the bar quite high for ourselves, but also for the city. And if it brings the standard up, it speaks to us being a catalyst for good in the city, which all cities need at the moment.
- [31:35]
C
Was it a tricky process to move from the values you had on paper and translating it into reality, or actually it was more seamless than it sounds.
- [31:44]
B
But we were convinced that if you go back in time to the Victorian or Georgian period, the most important placemaking initiatives that we've ever seen was the creation of squares, public squares and parks around cities. And they were the social media of their time. So for us to replicate that, we're just repeating some of the best values in history. Dublin has a history of Georgian squares. We were very fortunate to have a square, or in this case, a triangular park in front of Wilton. And we made that the logo of the development. And when we started leasing this space, and to be fair to LinkedIn and the occupiers that have followed LinkedIn into this location, they could see the benefit of having such a naturally stimulating environment and your doorstep.
- [32:30]
C
Not to put you on the spot, but what is your favorite part of the whole development?
- [32:34]
B
I think the restored fountain, because I remember coming to this park when the fountain was overgrown. It was a storage area for winos. It was a more socially challenging time. It was probably 15, 20 years ago. We didn't own the entire estate at that point, and I distinctly remember that. And then to have the opportunity in my career career 15 years later to actually make a difference, put the water back into the fountain, light the fountain, keep it clean. And to see people sitting around that fountain on a Saturday or Sunday having a coffee, just chilling, to me that's the most stimulating and rewarding aspect of this entire development. Never mind the financial returns, because that'll be there long after I'm gone. And I think for me and for my, my own team, having some purpose like that, bigger than financial returns is a real motivator.
- [33:23]
C
This concept of quality of life when it comes to creating spaces in cities, it's so nice to see it actually being a reality and not just a concept on paper. And you can see in all the details throughout the development that. So we look forward to coming back next year and seeing the F and B in place, the new tenants in place, and hopefully more million visitors to this park.
- [33:44]
B
We have a marquee set up for you.
- [33:46]
C
Okay, great. I can't wait. Niall, thank you very much.
- [33:48]
B
You're welcome.
- [34:02]
A
And that's all for this second special episode of the Urbanist in partnership with iput. The Urbanist is produced by Carlotta Rebello and by David Stevens who also edits the show. I'm Andrew Tuck. Goodbye and thank you for listening. City lovers. I put Real estate is Dublin's leading property investment company. For almost six decades they've owned and developed the best workplaces in Ireland. Setting standards and attracting global capital to the Irish market. As a gateway to Europe they Dublin is a global centre for investment. I put leads the market by delivering innovative design led workplaces and public spaces that enhance the occupier experience and neighborhood life. Their ambition to set new benchmarks in workplace quality, attract leading businesses to Dublin all while delivering strong sustainable returns for their investors. Find out how they're building this Future. Head to IPUT.com now I put creator of Exceptional places, custodian of the city.