Why Dublin's main street is still down in the dumps

Five years ago, a plan to rejuvenate O'Connell Street was launched withgreat fanfare

Five years ago, a plan to rejuvenate O'Connell Street was launched withgreat fanfare. But there's not much to show for it apart from the Spire,writes Frank McDonald

In February, 1998, there was a real sense that the fortunes of O'Connell Street were about to change for the better. Dublin's city planners had produced a great plan and there was a large gathering in the Mansion House to cheer it on.

Five years and three project managers later, "Ireland's Main Street" is still down in the dumps. If anything, it's worse than ever because of the hoardings for Luas construction works and the phased laying out of a promised plaza in front of the GPO.

Even the plaza will take another 18 months to complete, due to the need to keep two lanes on both sides of the street open to traffic. The Luas works should be finished sooner, if the Tallaght-Connolly line is to open in autumn 2004.

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The Spire also took longer than anticipated to realise. Dogged by objections and court challenges, it was erected last January - three years behind schedule - and finally lit on Thursday night as a beacon of civic confidence in the future of O'Connell Street.

But private sector investment has been slow to follow, as Paul Moloney, project manager for the North East Inner City, freely concedes. The biggest bugbear is the Carlton site, which should by now have been developed as a shopping centre.

Though full planning permission was granted for this scheme in 1999, the Carlton Group failed to deliver the goods and is challenging a Dublin City Council compulsory purchase order in the High Court. A date for the hearing has yet to be set.

If, or when, the council gets its hands on the site, it is likely to be sold on to developers subject to strict performance conditions.

A shopping centre might or might not be viable, but it would clearly provide an ideal location for the Abbey Theatre.

Until the Carlton problem is resolved, Upper O'Connell Street will continue to lag behind - despite such creditable efforts as the Gresham's creation of a Shelbourne-like afternoon tea lounge and the construction of a Jurys Inn around the corner.

There are question marks over the future of the Ambassador and plans to extend the Hugh Lane Gallery into the adjoining former National Ballroom on Parnell Square, as well as making something more of the sterile Garden of Remembrance.

All of these were included in the 1998 O'Connell Street Area Integrated Plan. Other elements yet to be realised include a new pedestrian bridge linking Marlborough Street with Hawkins Street, though there are plans for a boardwalk on Eden Quay.

The existing boardwalk running from Ormond Quay to Bachelors Walk has become more user-friendly, as a result of a welcome recognition by the Garda that a stronger police presence is required if it is not to become a a "no-go" area.

The city council has also appointed a full-time public domain officer for the O'Connell Street area, with a brief that covers litter, road works, reinstating footpaths after they have been dug up by utilities, and enforcement of the planning laws.

Moloney points out that progress has been made in designating O'Connell Street as an architectural conservation area and also an area of special planning control - the first such designation anywhere under the 2000 Planning Act.

These measures will allow the city planners to control not just alterations to the physical fabric of buildings, but also changes of use - to avoid a repetition of the Ann Summers debacle - as well as the removal of ugly signs and advertising billboards.

However, though Bertie Ahern was said to be taking a close personal interest in the rejuvenation of O'Connell Street, the Government has subscribed nothing. The tax incentives that were available for investing in the area ran out on June 30th.

Roches Stores is completing a €25 million upgrading of its premises in Henry Street, Penneys has spent something similar on a major extension and a long-planned redevelopment of the dreadful Ilac shopping centre is about to get under way.

Clery's, one of the linchpins of O'Connell Street, is revamping its North Earl Street frontage, while the Royal Dublin Hotel is also extending into the last remaining original Georgian house on the street - hopefully with more sensitivity this time.

What Moloney calls the "gathering pace" of investment in the hinterland of O'Connell Street is illustrated by projects worth some €250 million now under way in the north-east inner city and a similar sum being sunk into the west side of Smithfield.

And whatever about the row over the trees in O'Connell Street, everyone agrees that the Carlton site is pivotal. Only if it attracts major investment - perhaps with the Abbey as its "anchor" - will the street experience a real renaissance.