Sandy Quarter, Galway.

Website: www.thesandyquarter.ie

The Land Development Agency (LDA), in partnership with Galway City Council (GCC), has prepared a Spatial Framework for lands bounding Sandy Road, Galway. The future development of a new urban quarter at Sandy Road will focus on optimising brownfield and underutilised areas. Ceathrú an Ghainimh – The Sandy Quarter will have a strong sense of place for the entire local community. The Quarter will be easy to navigate via new pedestrian and cycle routes which will create a walkable neighbourhood providing for a new local main street with active frontages and new community facilities and sparking renewed growth across the entire area. The draft of the Spatial Framework was consulted on in spring 2023 with a final version due for publication in late 2023.

The first step towards delivering the transformative potential of the Sandy Road area was the preparation of a Design Review which was commissioned by the LDA and was run by the Royal Institute of Architects Ireland (RIAI) to provide high-level, blue-sky visions for the site together with indicative views on the possible capacity of the site. Following this stage the LDA appointed a multi-disciplinary design team led by Reddy Architecture + Urbanism to develop this draft spatial framework.

The objective of the Spatial Framework is to develop the following three structuring principles for the development of a new mixed-use neighbourhood at Sandy Road:

• A comprehensive vision
• Masterplanning themes
• Key principles and guidelines

The future development of a new urban quarter at Sandy Road will focus on optimising brownfield and underutilised areas in order to deliver on the vision established in the Design Review.

Ceathrú an Ghainimh – The Sandy Quarter will have a strong sense of place for the entire local community. The Quarter will be easy to navigate via new pedestrian and cycle routes. These routes will create a walkable neighbourhood; sparking renewed growth across the entire area. The Spatial Framework provides for a new local main street with active frontages and new community facilities.

The Square will aim to be a new city location where people will genuinely want to spend time and build relationships. The character areas will be people focused, integrated with high quality public realm and bio-diverse parkland areas and play spaces. The neighbourhood will have distinctive character areas with innovative housing and streets. The development will be a major new pilot opportunity for the city through the provision of high quality, universally designed, energy positive mixed tenure homes, including affordable and social homes. A new vision for community will act as the future benchmark for local neighbourhood development.

Full details at www.thesandyquarter.ie Contact us at [email protected]