Work On Offaly Town’s €7M Obama Plaza To Begin
Thursday, 2 February 2012
THE site of the multi-million euro 'Barack Obama Plaza' planned for Moneygall by famous entrepreneur Pat McDonagh is set to spring into life in the coming weeks, the Tribune has learned.
The tiny Offaly village, famous around the world after the historic visit of its ancestral son Barack Obama in May of last year, received the good news of the €7-million development a month before the President touched down in his ancestral homeland.
Last autumn the Tribune reported that the plans for the impressive new facility had hit some minor snags, after health and safety statements and pricing took longer than the planners had anticipated.
However, now it appears those stumbling blocks have been overcome and the project is gaining momentum, with the expected arrival of heavy machinery on site within the next few months.
'We've met with the planners and hope to put in a contracts notice within the next month. We have had to redesign the roundabouts and tweak them a little with the engineers, as the original planning hadn't focused much on the design of the traffic facilities,' Pat McDonagh told the Tribune this week.
'We hope to be on site within the next three months and by the end of the summer the site should be in full-swing,' an enthusiastic Mr. McDonagh told this newspaper.
Henry Helay, famed eighth cousin of Barack Obama and the man who welcomed the President and First Lady with open arms upon alighting from the Secret Service vehicle in Moneygall on that fateful day last May, told the Tribune the people of Moneygall are very excited at the news.
'It's great news for Moneygall and great news for the larger area,' Henry said. 'It will bring more people to the village when they stop off at the Obama Plaza and they can avail of the chance to walk in the President's footsteps and see the Kearney family homestead. It's been a great news year for Moneygall and we are still very passionate about the story here,' he said.
The original plans for the state-of-the-art service station include a retail and food travel plaza of approximately 1050-sq-m, 74 car parking spaces, 14 coach parking spaces and 47 truck parking spaces.
The development is expected to create over 50 full-time jobs and 20 part-time jobs, as well as 80 jobs in the development and building stages of the project.
The 12-acre site will be a major purpose-built motorway services facility along the M7 route between Dublin and Limerick, with potential for the construction of a hotel for motorists to stop off over night.
The original plans also include a large Supermac's restaurant, a Papa John's Pizza outlet and food court, as well as convenience shops, fuel pumps and other facilities. It is hoped the development will become a key stop-off point for motorists traveling through the midlands and will be a significant boost for the local economy by bringing tourists and visitors to the area.
The development will be constructed on a 12-acre site adjacent to the village and motorway, on the junction of the old N7 road and the new M7 motorway.
The junction received some publicity earlier this year after Roscrea Chamber of Commerce urged the Gardaí to identify the new infrastructure as 'dangerous,' following several accidents at the Roscrea and Moneygall junctions.
In February the National Roads Authority (NRA) acknowledged there is a problem with the junctions and gave local representatives reassurances that the NRA are: 'working in tandem with local authorities to correct the ramps.'
Mr. McDonagh told the Tribune he 'hasn't been in touch with the NRA' and said he has no reason to believe they are not fully supportive of the project.
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