BALLINA
man Richard Barrett is set to take on his biggest project yet, building
a €1billion ‘green city’ in South America. The property empire of
Treasury Holdings, the largest developer in Ireland, co-owned by
Richard Barrett and John Ronan, looks set to transform the Colombian
capital of Bogota after it was reported that city planners made an
approach to build a green city there.
The offer comes on foot
of Colombia’s increasing environmental problems as a result of the
growing population which is soaring by 140,000 annually causing the
carbon footprint to escalate. The Bogota plan is now said to be similar
to Treasury Holdings €1.2 billion ‘eco-city’ near Shanghai in China.
The
world’s first purpose- build eco-city at Dongtan on the island of
Chongming is now underway with phase one expected to be completed in
2010. It will be finished in time for the World Expo to be held in
Shanghai. The area will then be home to 80,000 people.
In an
interview with national newspapers last week, Richard Barrett said he
is confident that his company is on the cusp of something great. “We’ve
got limited amounts of expertise for these projects at the moment, but
we’re trying to build larger teams so we can take on new projects
outside China. Eco-city developments are a new way of thinking and I’m
sure that eventually it’ll be the biggest thing we can do as a
company.”
The Ballina barrister and economist developed an
interest in property law and was involved in property development prior
to founding Treasury Holdings with John Ronan in 1989. Since then, the
company has gone on to become internationally recognised and the
Dongtan development has generated huge interest across the globe.
The
eco-city will combat the carbon footprint problems by using an
environ-mental planning scheme. With China in the grip of a population
explosion, between now and 2020, the country needs to build 400 new
towns to accommodate more than 300 million people from the rural areas.
The project was taken on by the Shanghai Industrial Development
Corporation (SIIC) who will work with the Irish company to develop a
model town.
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has lauded the work of
Treasury Holdings and described the Shanghai venture as “a most
exciting development which highlights the mutual benefits of
co-operation between Irish and Chinese companies.”
With Dublin
now rivalling Los Angeles in terms of its carbon footprint, the company
has shown no moves to use their expertise on home ground. It seems that
although there is no development of that type in Ireland to date, it is
not something that has gone unnoticed by Mr Barrett.
“If we owned all of Dublin’s North Docks, we could have built an eco-development there,” he said.
Anna-Marie Flynn
(c) Western People
Wednesday, 22 August 2007 22:35
Ballina man to build 1bn green city in Colombia
Written by News Desk
BALLINA
man Richard Barrett is set to take on his biggest project yet, building
a €1billion ‘green city’ in South America. The property empire of
Treasury Holdings, the largest developer in Ireland, co-owned by
Richard Barrett and John Ronan, looks set to transform the Colombian
capital of Bogota after it was reported that city planners made an
approach to build a green city there.
Published in
Eco Housing
