`Second city", is it? Dublin may yet be forced to trot behind Cork when it comes to millennium plans. At tomorrow's AGM of the Cork Opera House, the company will display designs for the front and the famous blank river side of the theatre, prepared by Murray O'Laoire Architects. Formal planning permission for the refurbishment will be made next month.

The extended front of the building will look "a bit like Festival Hall in Edinburgh," according to Opera House director, Gerry Barnes, and the river face will be broken by galleries. (This would hopefully solve one of the country's great architectural conundrums - that concrete wall facing the lovely Lee).

The plan would cost £3 million, of which £750,000 has been raised already, and is a joint project with Cork Corporation. The Opera House is looking for other partners, such as the Arts Council and the Department of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands. The development would complement the pedestrianisation of Emmet Place, where boats were once moored before the Custom House. That Custom House is now the Crawford Gallery, which is also engaging in ambitious expansion. With performances being staged and sculpture sited in Emmet Place, the area would become a little cultural enclave.