A 'protected usage' designation would go a long way to reviving Bewley's Grafton Street cafe, writes Paul Quilligan
The regrettable closure last November of Grafton Street's Bewley's Oriental Cafe, except for the shop, does not need to be permanent. But if it is to be reopened - and I feel it can be - it will have to be for compelling economic reasons, not sentiment alone.
Familiarity makes us imagine that the "Dublin vibe" that was so much part of Bewley's will survive no matter what we lose. But we have only to ask visitors from abroad about the closure to find out clearly what we are letting go. The cafes were the heart of Grafton Street and Westmoreland Street. People from all continents just cannot believe what we are doing.
Dublin today is all about money, and any business consortium is likely to plead that it is impossible to make a return selling coffee in Grafton Street, given the rents that market forces demand and get on the street. Yet the truth, the "bigger picture", is that the real overall value of Bewley's to Grafton Street's traders and shoppers, the real overall value of Bewley's to tourism, and the real overall value of Bewley's to the cultural and heritage value of our city are not part of their calculation. To ignore these values is to put our heads in the sand.
We need a new form of conservation, "social conservation", to bring these hidden values into the light where they can be examined and we can then decide collectively what we want to keep - not to thwart the growth of the city or for nostalgic reasons, but to give balance and sustainability to the development of our city. Dublin City Council is empowered and obliged to do just this in its Development Plan every five years. During January the council will debate an amendment, No. 85, which I have suggested, which seeks to set up a "protected usage register" in the same way the protected structures register is composed. As we know, protected structures are very well looked after in the 2000 Planning Act, but no mention is made of "protected usage" even though these uses are synonymous with the building in which they are conducted.
Buildings with uses synonymous to them that come to mind for protection would be the Gaiety Theatre, recently saved, the Olympia Theatre, saved by subscription, the National Museum, the National Gallery, the Shelbourne Hotel and of course the Hibernian Hotel, gone but not forgotten, and yes, Bewley's Oriental Cafes. All of these usages in protected structure buildings are synonymous with the buildings they are conducted in and synonymous with Dublin life. Protecting them in a new category of "protected usage" could give them sustained and unthreatened life.
In the case of Bewley's of Grafton Street, a protected usage categorisation would mean that landlords would not be able to raise rents in line with those sustainable by the high street chain stores but only with other comparable catering concerns, allowing a cafe to do business on the street. To that end, councillors should vote this amendment into the Development Plan to be adopted in March. The effect over time will be to establish a balance of development in our city. This can all be done within the present framework of the Dublin City Development Plan.
With social conservation and "protected usage" status granted to Bewley's, the Government could then also help by giving Bewley's the same tax break that the IFSC enjoys or indeed lots of tax-break hotels around the countryside qualify for. A double rent and rates allowance would help. A tax designation would release funds to do up the premises.
All of the above would be perfectly justifiable on macroeconomic and macro-cultural grounds. Putting both of these strands (social conservation and tax designation) into place would of course level the playing field in Grafton Street and allow mixed usage to develop.
Finally, getting Bewley's Oriental Cafes back into action is of course the objective. This will happen in a new "third wave". We've had the Bewley family, we've had the Campbell Bewley's, and now we need a third wave cafe reflecting the Dublin of today. More of that anon.
Paul Quilligan is an architect with Quilligan Architects