Michael Moynihan: Is it too much to ask for a public space after spending €57m?

More to the point. Saturday, a trip to South Main Street, with an essential stop on the way at Gusto on Washington Street for coffee.

South Main Street was the objective because of the STAMP Festival being held there, a joint venture by Benchspace, Cork Craft & Design, Sample-Studios, and Shandon Art Studios. The festival was located in and outside the old Beamish & Crawford Counting House.

Readers will be familiar with that striking facade, which now has modern apartment blocks behind and around it, but on Saturday it was open for a visit, and inside there were plenty of interesting works to see in the big open spaces upstairs, in particular.

On the lower floor there were craft stands which I enjoyed as well, and all told it was illuminating to finally be standing inside a building you’ve been passing for years, and to get the reverse perspective on the streetscape outside.

On the plaza outside there were coffee stands and more craft outlets, and with the mild weather, it was a great experience. All of a sudden a part of the city which was for long synonymous with narrow vistas and tight spaces was opened out, and there was a whole new way to appreciate the buildings on the eastern side of South Main Street. My research assistants and I had a great time and left in good humour. Progress. Excellent.

Fast forward to Tuesday's newspaper, in which Eoin English had some news.

“A new city plaza which has been developed outside the regenerated Beamish & Crawford Counting House in Cork city will remain closed to the public until the building is occupied.”

Excuse me?

“The Counting House, which dates back to 1792 in the heart of the city’s medieval precinct, has undergone extensive restoration as part of BAM’s Brewery Quarter regeneration project on the South Main Street site,” Eoin added.

“The project included the development of a large plaza outside the Counting House which has been fenced off throughout the project.

“The fencing came down at the weekend as the building hosted the Stamp creative festival, which attracted thousands of people to experience the new venue.

“But BAM has confirmed that the plaza will be fenced off again and will remain off-limits to the public until the Counting House is occupied. The restored Counting House has a footprint of almost 90,000 square feet, with ancillary basement car parking, bicycle and shower facilities, and is currently being marketed as office space.

“A spokesman for BAM said the plaza area will become ‘public realm’ once the Brewery Quarter development is completed along with the planned multi-million streetscape upgrade of South Main Street and surrounding areas which is being advanced by Cork City Council.”

Apologies for the lengthy quotation, but I felt it was worth it to give the complete picture.

In short, the addition of a public space to the city last weekend was a fleeting dream, a once-off, until the Brewery Quarter development is completed.

Obviously, BAM is a commercial venture and has made a significant investment in the Counting House. They are, of course, entitled to get value for money on that investment.

Why even bother to open up the building and plaza to the public last weekend, then, and tease all and sundry with that fleeting glimpse of what might have been?

It’s particularly annoying to lose out on the latter part of that equation — the plaza. Having an open public space in the middle of the city is a boon, because there are not as many as you might think, and some of those which exist are being encroached upon already.

And as it happens, the plaza outside the Counting House is a good vantage point from which to observe this phenomenon.

If you stood there — if it was open to the public, that is — and looked across the road and down Tuckey Street, you could just glimpse the Freemason’s Hall which backs onto Bishop Lucey Park. Councillors in Cork have agreed to allow the Freemasons to extend their premises into the park, which will necessitate the removal of some mature trees from the park.

It seems remarkable that a secretive private organisation can be facilitated to such a degree by the municipal authorities at the expense of the public, but that’s a matter for another day and another column.

Events centre

Back on the plaza, a quick glance southwards in the direction of Barrack Street will reveal another large space, though not one which seems likely to be occupied any time soon.

I refer, of course, to the events centre which is to be located near the South Channel of the river. 

The events centre is now almost as mythical as Brigadoon, the supernatural Scottish village in the musical of the same name. 

Older readers such as myself will recall 'Almost Like Being In Love', the showstopper from Act One, but we also remember that in the musical Brigadoon appears once every one hundred years.

The events centre has not appeared yet. It only feels like we’ve been waiting one hundred years.

And, of course, the thread which holds all this together is BAM, the company which gave us a quick sniff of the freedom of an open public plaza last weekend, only to remove it hastily, as it is also the company building the events centre.

Happily, Eoin brought the events centre up with BAM for his piece: “BAM has also confirmed that it is still progressing with the detailed design and “up-to-date costings” for the long-stalled events centre project which is earmarked for a site next to the Counting House, and "anticipates being on-site" in the third quarter of this year.

“The sod for the 6,000-capacity venue was turned in February 2016 but not a single brick has been laid on the venue since.

“In February 2022, the Cabinet sanctioned an additional €7m of government funding for the project to meet the cost of “construction delays caused by the covid-19 pandemic”, bringing to just over €57m the total amount of taxpayers’ money in the project which is supposed to be delivered by BAM and Live Nation.”

Yes, you read that correctly. You and I have already contributed in excess of €57 million to this project, which still has not been delivered seven years after the sod was turned on the site.

You know what might be a nice gesture from BAM to the people of Cork? Opening up that plaza a hundred yards down the street from the mythical event centre. Putting in some benches, a little landscaping. Classy lighting.

In other words, creating a space that would be an accessible public amenity to all the people of the city and one that doesn’t cost them any money to use.

That’s only fair. They’ve already contributed enough for facilities in that part of town.