The Anglo Irish Bank Building, located on the North Wall of Dublin’s Docklands, has undergone an extraordinary number of setbacks in its going-on-five-years of construction. The headquarters building project began as an expensive, hi-tech testament to the bank’s success and regional clout.
Started during the end of the Irish economic boom, the construction’s progress soon became halted by the crushing weight of a global financial crisis. By 2009, Anglo had gone belly up and was in the process of being nationalized by the Irish government. Progress on the project came to a standstill and suffered further setbacks by the collapse of Zoe Developments, the company of Liam Carroll, who owned the partially constructed building.
Then, to set things even further back, the architectural designers of the new bank headquarters were forced into liquidation. With a bankrupt bank, owner and design team, it seemed as though the project would simply never be finished. However, with the purchase of the Anglo bank by the Central Irish Bank for €7 million, there seems to be a hope of completion on the horizon. Undaunted by superstitions, the Central Bank plans to sink €50 million into finishing the project.
The contract to finish the building’s construction is expected to be awarded by 2013. Completion of the project is expected to take 18 months, meaning the building will not be finished until the latter half of 2015. This is certainly not the most shining example of the famed luck of the Irish.
