Perhaps a way to mitigate against a post 6pm black hole appearing between the city centre and the Bay is to build the convention centre and/or the new arena on the south side of CS/Dumballs Rd/Capital Quarter?

A convention centre and arena on CS south side for example would make redevelopment of the south side of Central Station a more attractive proposition and may give impetus to the 'heritage quarter' around Trade Street/Penarth Rd talked about in the Regaining Momentum document produced by the council.

Work on the bridge starts this month to finish next summer. I'm really looking forward to this. I hope it will be an important part of the city's cycling infrastructure, a route from Churchill Way to the Bay via Guildford Crescent that avoids the Bute Street and St Mary Street bridge junctions.

There is some chat in the article about it making it easier for people to buy lunch in town. Not quite, there is already a bridge there, this one just looks nicer. The increase in capacity is for things with wheels: bikes, prams etc.



http://www.walesonline.co.uk/business/work-linking-office-scheme-cardiffs-6391237

Not sure if anyone has mentioned this but the span of the old railway bridge is now gone. Must be a nightmare for those who have flats in and around Henke Court who have lectures in the Atrium.

Nice to see Number 2 has been given the go ahead and is scheduled to begin construction next month.

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/business/business-news/jr-smart-gets-go-ahead-6697073

This will add to the crane count quite soon !

This mixed use development sounds very odd to me. Offices mixed with student accomodation, care homes, hotels, residential - presumably flats - just sounds like one big mess. Have we heard anything more about the 'creative units'?

Buildings and areas should be multi-use. that would ensure that areas, especially business areas, would not be dead after 18:00. I would like to see office blocks which also had residential and retail components such as newsagents, cafes, pubs, chemists, restaurants and the like. That would mean 24 hour activity.

I agree. In the UAE it's often the case that single towers are a mixture of hotel, residential, office and commercial.

The problem with everything south of the railway line in Cardiff is that it's so sterile. Outside of the Wharf pub there is practically nothing in the way of commercial or entertainment between the restaurant in the Radisson Blu hotel and Mermaid Quay (with the exception of the local shops on Bute St).

The area of Dubai my apartment was in plus the more commercially focused areas are exactly as you described Karl and as a result the places were full of life more often than not all day and night. The hotel I stayed at a different area of the city for my last month in the country had two towers, one being a hotel and the other an office, next to it another tower that was residential and again units of varying types at ground floor. Of course Capital Quarter is on a smaller scale but it's the same principle, mix it up a little and there's more chance of all the land being developed sooner for one and secondly make sure there are plenty of units within or underneath to allow people in the development or next to it to have somewhere to go.

On this subject I was curious if there was going to be such space in the buildings and thankfully there is.

If you look on the JR Smart website (they seemed to have abandoned the specific capital quarter domain) it does mention retail and leisure space in Number 1 in the text on the current projects page, I'm not sure about number 2.

http://jrsmart.com/current_projects.asp

http://jrsmart.com/number_one_capital_quarter.asp

There's some more images on number 2 here as well (apologies if anyone has already posted these links)

http://jrsmart.com/capital_quarter_cardiff.asp

http://jrsmart.com/number_two_capital_quarter.asp

Not to be too pedantic because you have a point, there is the wharf and holiday inn express on Atlantic wharf and a corner shop half way down LGA, oh and dont foret the red dragon center ;)

how long is this development planned for? will we move into a new architectural style (neo-Georgian?) by the time it is finished? So far JR Smart have finished 2 buildings with a third planned soon. There are 11 buildings in total and this development has been going on for something like 5 years already

I suppose it will dependent on how quick they let the buildings. One of the Driscoll buildings is still largely empty and they were completed about 2-3 years ago which gives you an indication.

I think once the bridge is built it will provide better connectivity. Also the infrastructure ie.roads, soft landscaping, public areas will be completed which will serve to make it look a lot more attractive to potential tenants.

I expect the student residences will be the next phase and there isn't any real reason to delay that as long as they have an operator lined up. I don't expect it to be complete for another 10 years though - there are too many competing schemes in Cardiff. If Capital Quarter was the only game in town for new Grade A office space it might be a different story but it's not.

It has taken an age.

Is there any news on the student blocks ? All I know is that planning permission has gone in but nothing more. It would be good to see them work on these two blocks the same time as Number 2, but is that likely ?

Looking at the recent planning application the two blocks (north block and south block) they are planning is covering what was blocks B and C near the railway and blocks E and F immediately behind Atlantic House.

So that leaves blocks H-L from the original plans, five buildings and if you go back to the original plans and look at the image in the very first post of this thread they were earmarking these final plots in phase 2 for some relatively big buildings. They did have plans for hotels as well, which have gone very quiet, as have all the other plans for new hotels in the city in fact (remember how many we had at one point).

Maybe 10 years is a realistic figure sadly Karl.

If current rates of progress are maintained, it'll be neo Charlestonian by the time that lot gets finished.

Heh compared to some Cardiff projects this is rapid! and surely capital no.1 should have a place in the guinness book of records for being constructed by one man and his hod carrier!! I salute you JR Smart you get things done!!

Sorry are people suggesting we use Dubai - a vulgar playground - as some kind of role model for Cardiff? It's a place built on oil wealth designed for billionaires.

So what if an area is quiet after 6pm? Isn't that generally the idea with most places? Obviously you have the night life in the city centre but that can only spread so far. This mix of care home, student property, offices and hotels looks an eccentric mess.

The care home element has been replaced by additional student accommodation - the elderly seemingly don't want to live next to 19 yr olds. But the mix of hotel, offices and student accom could work fairly well as together they will give a critical mass of customers for say a shop, a cafe and a bar.

It looks like an eccentric mess to you Frank, but mixed used schemes are common these days and Dubai was just used as an example. It could just as easily have been Manchester or Dublin.

Now I'm confused (doesn't take much!) the cladding on parts of the building have changed - are we going to end up with something closer to the original render. Anyway this from today...

I think that's the final product Paul. I very rarely look at renders and think the finished article will look similar - celestia taught me that

Looks like there is obviously still cladding to go in over the main entrance.

When I stick my eyes dead close to my desktop screen (the things I do for this forum...), I can see the faint lines of cladding already in place - so that's it me thinks.

Don't think it's not appreciated!! you may be right re the cladding but one things for sure if anything changes you wont miss any of the 'action' here!!

Looks about done to me, they are scheduled to hand it over in April so I guess there's just some internal works to do and that's one finished building ready for occupation.

Over the next few weeks we should see a start on number 2 as well.

looks a little soviet.

along with Ty Pont Haearn, Comrade Hart will be happy

Have they already found people to occupy this place? I hope the demand is there.

I live in Ty Pont so was interested to see this discussion. I have watched the Number 1 building go from foundations to finally being near-completion. Wish they'd hurry up and build the bridge, it's really inconvenient having to walk all the way round if you want to get to the Bay etc.
This is the building back in September 2013. (ladybird photobombed)


And below is a photo from today, 14th March 2014, which proves just how slow progress is.
They just painted on the car park lines and started landscaping. You might notice the footbridge is now missing..

Great! Will be good to see if you can get any photos of the bridge being constructed. Would be nice to see.

Nice one typontresident - great photos, oh and welcome to the forum

I tell you what, they can say what they want about Ty Pont but I wouldn't mind that view!!

took this pic today of bridge progress - ie not a lot!



mind you maybe it's the kind of consruction that will just kind of appear overnight?

The full text from this article has been posted on another thread, but I thought I'd put the link here as well seeing as this is the most relevant place for it.

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/business/strong-interest-welsh-governments-speculative-6873146

In terms of number 1 being occupied it sounds like there's about to be some positive news with 70% of space being under offer apparently.

From what is in the article it seems that Finance Wales are taking some space, plus two other private sector tenants, one being an I.T. company (not quite fitting in with the purpose of the enterprise zone I know).

In addition it sounds like a student housing provider and a hotel operator are about to sign up for the scheme.

It all sounds like good news for the Capital Quarter scheme.

The identity of the I.T. company locating to Number 1 has been revealed today

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/business/business-news/fast-expanding-cloud-computing-security-solutions-7038497

Such jobs are always welcome, and it's nice to see a new entrant into the I.T. market in the area. Selfishly some more I.T. jobs in the city centre suits me

I'm curious about the Enterprise Zone purpose though. The 'professional services' part of the zone name clearly covers anything and there's never been any comment previously that it was to include I.T., which is a bloody wide sector in it's own right.

Really good news

Not all good news, it was stated on wales today tonight that another US company

DRIAS Transnat that was set up to create up to 50 jobs at new Cardiff office in 2012. Are not coming,after all, it did not give a reason why.

which shows the hyperbole around these deals, attracting a hundred jobs and then not coming is hardly good news, its all hyperbole

http://www.investincardiff.com/latest-news/2012/2/20/call-centre-firm-conduit-creates-600-jobs-in-cardiff-a1717

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/uk-wales-south-east-wales-17035810

need to watch wales today from tonight 8 to 11 mins for story.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b041d2pw/BBC_Wales_Today_28_04_2014/

That's a different company though, you can't assume the same thing will happen with this company. The jobs don't exist until people are employed in them and I don't think anyone assumes any different. Companies have plans that sometimes don't materialise for a whole variety of reasons, sometimes sinister but generally genuine.

What I would hope is that any government money that has been handed over to them is claimed back. I would hope, probably naively so, that there are mechanisms in place to do this and if there isn't there should be.

In addition to my comment above, since yesterday's announcement they've gone from no adverts on their website for Cardiff to a dozen already. So that's a good start considering in year 1 they are only forecasting 50 roles.

https://www.alertlogic.com/about-us/careers/

They may not reach their target of 120 odd jobs but it's a good start.

They are starting to construct the bridge



Close up

Thanks for the photos, that's a decent view you have of the site.

Keep them coming !

One question, is there any activity in front of the Number 1 building as well ? They are meant to have started construction on Number 2 as well by now.

From a distance it looks like the bridge is onsite, but not in place. I think it is sat on the floor on the Tyndall Street side waiting to put in place. Who knows, I saw this this morning so maybe it is on it's way up right now?

I take that back. I'm sure they will put it into place at night when there are no trains running. Stupid thing to say.

Have they started on Number 2 yet or are they actually waiting to hand over the keys to Number 1 first ?

Anyone know ?

reasonably ugly building (above). no real architectural merit here unfortunately

Try 3am Monday 26th. ;-)

Yeah, that's what I guessed. Confused me at first too, I wondered why they were building it so far from the tracks!

It's almost finished now:

Cheers Matt - I'll set my alarm clock!! well maybe not - but gonna have to pop by some time on monday!

The bridge span is now in.

Ah, I got my dates mixed up. in fairness the email I had did say the 25th... but then it also said Monday morning!

PLeasant surprise to see it already done today - I saw that monster lifting crane at thought it was for tonights activities - but like a moth to a flame I had to get a closer look!

Here's a photo of the main span being lifted in.

I've traveled under it on a train. You can certainly see it as part of the approach to Cardiff, although of course i was going out of my way to look.

I am a little disappointed that it is this blur grey colour as opposed to the white of the earlier renders. It was more striking in white.