New cafΘs and restaurants opening along the northside of Dublin's quays in the coming months should do much to bring life to a part of the city which tends to be deserted outside office hours.
During the past decade, a large amount of construction work has taken place in the area covered by the International Financial Services Centre and this has fundamentally changed its character.
But at least another year will pass before builders are out of the entire scheme because the large Clarion Quay apartment complex accommodating over 150 units has yet to be completed, as has the new National College of Ireland/Docklands campus which is due to open in September 2002.
However, new retail and restaurant facilities have begun to open in response to demand from the area's growing number of residents. Last autumn, the Excise Bar opened and a number of shops have also started trading on Mayor Street, with more expected in the months ahead.
The one substantial site still requiring attention is the 10,000 sq m 19th century Stack A warehouse. In late May, plans were announced by the Dublin Docklands Development Authority for a £20 million (25.39m) redevelopment of the building to provide a mixture of museum, leisure and shopping facilities, but these will not fundamentally alter the exterior appearance of Stack A, which has four top-lit gable ends facing the river.
Meanwhile, work is underway on two units of 90 and 135 sq m respectively on a riverside site opposite the Clarion Quay apartments.
Due for completion in the months ahead, these are expected to open for business in the first week of September with a restaurant in the larger space and a cafΘ in the smaller. Interest in the two premises was "extraordinarily strong" according to Mervyn Freely of letting agents DTZ Sherry FitzGerald, although he was not able to say who would be the tenants.
Close by, the Clarion Hotel has both a restaurant, called Sinergy, and a large bar, both of which have been trading well since opening some four months ago.
The hotel's managing partner Brendan Curtis is optimistic that once additional facilities start to come on stream, the whole area will begin to attract not just local residents but also a clientele from elsewhere in the city.
Opposite the hotel, along the length of the newly-created Excise Walk, the ground floor of the Clarion Quay apartment blocks will hold nine units, housing a mixture of retail and restaurant facilities.
For the moment, Charlotte Swanson of Hamilton Osborne King, which is looking after the scheme, cannot provide any further information on these outlets.
By now, the weakest and least satisfactory element of the entire area looks to be the Dublin Docklands Development Authority's own premises.
Occupying a key location opposite Jury's Inn and beside the Liffey, the building is a single-storey long, low structure in concrete brick and corrugated aluminium with PVC-frame windows.
The appearance of the place is not helped by a large section of the adjacent riverside walk being fenced off to provide car parking for the DDDA.
Given that the organisation has tried to set standards of architectural excellence in the commissions it offered to developers along the waterfront as well as the handsome landscaping along the rest of the quayside, the DDDA block must be considered to set a poor example.
