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Offaly Man Steering Titanic Construction Project In Belfast

Thursday, 19 January 2012

Noel Molloy, who is the Project Director at Harcourt Construction, is currently overseeing the construction of Titanic Belfast. TT0308

OFFALY man Noel Molloy, who is the Project Director at Harcourt Construction, is currently overseeing the construction of Titanic Belfast, which is Northern Ireland's largest man-made tourist attraction.
The six floor building will open on the 31st of March next and it is expected to attract around 400,000 visitors annually.
Titanic Belfast will include nine interpretive and interactive galleries exploring the sights, sounds, smells and stories associated with the Titanic, as well as the City and people which made her.
Noel has worked for Harcourt Construction since 2008. He was born and raised in Cloncarbon, Eglish, which is about 4 miles from Birr on the main Birr/Tullamore road.
Noel told me that he is 44 years of age and his parents are William and Dolly Molloy, but unfortunately his mother is deceased since February 1984. He has four siblings with the others being John, Maria, Liam and Joan.
John, Noel informed me, is working with FCI and is based in Fermoy with his wife Phyllis McNamara, who is originally from Shinrone, and their kids Ashley and James.
'Maria,' commented Noel, 'is living and working in Birr in Fox's Pharmacy and with her partner Joe Erritty they have two kids, Doireann and Tom.
'Liam is living and working in Drumcullen, he is working in Smyth's sand and gravel at Fivealley and is married to Celine O'Meara from Birr. They have 2 kids, Jack and Alex'.
He said Joan is living in Drumcullen and is working in the Department of Education in Tullamore. She is married to Pat Murphy from Birr with 2 kids, Ben and Macdara.
Noel attended Eglish National School until it was amalgamated with Rath National School where he began Hurling with the school and ultimately with Drumcullen GAA.
He then attended Birr Community School commencing in September 1980 and he has some very fond memories of that time 'with regard to the great teachers that we had and the fellow students I met and studied with'.
'Hurling with the various school teams was a great experience and, along with hurling against my school teammates in the county club competitions, is the source for a lot of my friendships and acquaintances that I still maintain'.
After Community School he studied engineering in Athlone Institute of Technology, where he began to play rugby and he worked in England during the summers and interim years.
Noel commenced his working life in Owens Supermarket on his summer holidays from Birr Community School and then progressed to working in construction with Paddy McIntyre, a builder based in Ballindown Birr, before during and after college.
'I eventually ended up in Cavanagh's Foundry,' continued Noel, 'working in the laboratory and I met some great colleagues who I remain friendly with still to this day.
'I then progressed to Breton Roecrete based in Blessington, Glenman Construction based in Galway and Capco and Johnson Controls based in Dublin, and I also lived in all these places'.
All the time during this period Noel was returning every weekend to play hurling with Drumcullen and Rugby with Birr, 'which were great times and the cause for great memories'.
Prior to working on Titanic Belfast he was project manager for the refurbishment and redevelopment of the premier Royal Oasis resort on Grand Bahama Island.
The Royal Oasis project involved the refurbishment of a 400 bed hotel, a 140,000 square foot convention centre, 50,000 square foot casino, a new 200 bed hotel, new 600 unit time share development and ancillary landscaping and services.
He has fifteen years experience in Project Manager/Director roles and has worked in London, Blessington, Galway, Dublin, as well as the Bahamas and Belfast.
'The Bahamas was a wonderful experience', commented Noel, 'and I would loved to have spent a much longer period of time there! It was fantastic to work in such a warm climate, in such a lovely country. The citizens there have such a marvellous, relaxed attitude which was a huge and very welcome change from working during the boom of the celtic tiger. I was based on the island of Grand Bahama and specifically the town of Freeport which was a tax free zone and during the '70s and '80s would have had all the film stars visiting the resorts and casinos. Things had changed by the time I arrived there but the people were some of the friendliest you could possibly meet. There was a very small ex pat community but there was a great local community who I got to know very well and still keep in touch with. The social life on the island was generally very quiet because of the decline in the resorts and tourism activity, however there were lots of opportunities for golf, diving and deep sea fishing'.
He points out that his other past projects include large Student accommodation blocks in the Ballymun regeneration project, an extension to Barberstown castle, a new office block at Baggot street bridge, a new sterilisation unit at Naas Hospital, a private hospital in Limerick, working on major capital projects for IBM, Ericsson and Xerox, and shopping centres in England.
Noel says that as a Project Director he is reponsible for delivering high quality, turn key, design and build projects to tight timelines and Budgets, 'motivating and managing all team members to focus on the delivery of goals and objectives and to develop their own skills'.
He is responsible for all elements of delivery from concept, programming, design, value engineering, tendering, subcontractor appointment, construction process and final delivery.
He has worked across all sectors of the construction industry, including hotels, hospitals, commercial and retail, call centres, residental and facility management.
Noel points out that Titanic Belfast is a unique and iconic project which will create 1300 banqueting seats, the world's largest Titanic exhibition and interpretation center, restaurants and shops including a 2 storey, 500 space, underground car park.
When RMS Titanic sailed away from Southampton on her maiden voyage on April 10th, 1912, she was hailed as 'the new wonder of the world'. A remarkable feat of Edwardian engineering and craftsmanship, she was the largest and most luxuriously appointed ship ever to sail the seas, and despite her tragic sinking she remains a source of enduring pride in Belfast, which is the city where she was constructed.
Titanic Quarter has been called Europe's largest urban regeneration scheme. The development is transforming a 185 acre site on the banks of the River Lagan in a new mixed use maritime quarter with a mile of water frontage. When completed the Quarter will include 7,500 apartments, 900,000 square metres of business, education, office and research and development floor space together with hotels, restaurants, cafés, bars and other leisure uses. Titanic Quarter is expected to create at least 25,000 new jobs over the next 15 years. In 2005 Eric Kuhne and Associates, also known as Civic Arts, were appointed by Titanic Quarter Ltd to act as lead concept architects and Master Planners for Titanic Quarter. Civic Arts have developed a Master Plan which is acting as a blueprint for the development of Titanic Quarter into a world-class waterfront location. Harcourt Construction and Noel are carrying out the Titanic Belfast project in accordance with this blueprint.
The Titanic's little sister, SS Nomadic, which served as a tender ship at Cherbourg, has returned to Belfast and is being faithfully restored.
Visitors can presently explore the recently restored Titanic's Dock and Pump-House and choose from a range of Titanic tours. A couple of years ago Lonely Planet described Belfast as a 'city on the rise'.
I asked Noel to elaborate on his work in Titanic Belfast and the challenges facing him. 'Our biggest challenge is the sheer magnitude of the project that we are delivering, which is a complete design and build turnkey project, so we could be dealing with organising the largest concrete pour in Ireland in the morning and then discussing the particular shade of the colour of the automatic ticketing machine in the afternoon and how the colour sits within the overall effect of the experience. Just today I had to deal with the proposed refurbishment of the historically protected drawing offices, the proposed location and protection of a 100 year old drawing over 33 feet long, the approval of under seat low level ambient lighting in the immersive theatre, a review with consultants of our commissioning program, a general update with the client, meet RTE to provide access for filming, approve the colour for an entranceway ceiling, and a 3 hour team meeting to discuss the close out items for the main build.
'With the effort of the incredible team I work with we get all the work done, albeit over long hours, and go home in the late evening satisfied that we have done a good job and are ready to tackle the challenges that tomorrow will bring.
'We have over 350 workers on site not to mention the team of over 40 consultant practices involved in the various design elements of the project and the workers involved off site in various manufacturing and assembly facilities'.
He said that after Titanic Belfast opens he doesn't know what his next project will be but he has no doubt that it will be an interesting project in an interesting place.

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