Two people who helped develop the Temple Bar area of Dublin have been appointed to further the development of a large cultural facility at the Grand Canal docks.
Ms Una Carmody and Mr Joe Melvin had extensive experience of urban renewal at Temple Bar Properties. The former is currently director of sales and lettings at TBP. The latter, currently with Kerrigan, Sheanon and Newman project management company, served for several years as buildings project manager with TBP. He oversaw such initiatives as Meetinghouse Square and the new Project Arts Centre. The Dublin Docklands Development Authority has appointed them to look into the development of a site of roughly 2 1/2 acres near Barrow Street as an arts and culture facility.
The scale of the project and the appointment of such high-profile cultural operators as Ms Carmody and Mr Melvin will inevitably lead to speculation that the new facility will be an opera house which Dublin, unlike most European capitals, lacks.
The idea of building an opera house on the docks was first floated by Ms Laura Magahy, managing director of Temple Bar Properties in 1997, but the Arts Council, of which Ms Magahy was a member, quickly denied that such a development formed any firm part of its future plans.
However, questioned yesterday as to whether the opera house idea was still extant, Ms Patricia Quinn, the former cultural director of Temple Bar Properties and now director of the Arts Council, said: "Ideas rule the world, in my opinion, and ideas never die. That was a particularly good one."
She added that such a large cultural facility would inevitably have a mix of uses. Ms Carmody stressed yesterday that it was far too early to speculate on what kind of cultural development would take place.
The development of an arts facility was mentioned briefly in the DDDA's regeneration plan for the area which was published in May and envisages a mix of office space, retail activity, restaurants and housing, "a city by the water."
The core funding for the new cultural facility is likely to flow from the Dublin Docklands Development Authority's earnings from the redevelopment of its land.