Work is underway on a vast new riverside sports park in Cork, Ireland, which will surround the city’s regenerated Páirc Uí Chaoimh Gaelic games stadium.

Demolition has begun to clear space for phase one of Marina Park – a €20m development created around the stadium and the adjoining agricultural Munster Showgrounds. The phase one masterplan published by the city council is focused on the area to the west of the stadium and the near Cork’s famous Atlantic Pond.

Leisure amenities will include a tree nursery and play zone, a boat club, meandering pathways and a water course, and a cultural pavilion and food and drinks space in one of the Showgrounds’’ former cow sheds.

According to the Irish Examiner newspaper, detailed designs for phase one should be finalised by the end of July when the demolition work is complete, and in time for a tender to process to begin before the end of the year. Construction due to start in early 2018, and the first part of the park is scheduled to open the following year.

Once phase one is done, the council expects funding to be released for phase two. This will feature several children’s play areas, public sports pitches and courts, an adventure water park, various gardens and an outdoor events space for up to 1,800 people. There will be a central plaza for cultural events and concerts, and a western plaza for smaller street performances.

Visitors will be able to enter along the tree-lined marina, or via the former Cork, Blackrock and Passage West railway line – which will be widened and adapted for pedestrians.

The full 32-hectare masterplan has been designed by landscape architects OKRA, in consultation with the council’s parks division.

Critics of the project have argued that the redeveloped stadium will dominate the landscape and sever the park in two, but the ground, along with a new centre of excellence campus, successfully passed through public consultation three years ago.