Shopfront race to the bottom
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DCC should make an example of some of these offenders. They should go to them in the morning with their staff and take down all the illegal signage and street clutter and refuse to collect the rubbish of the offending business until such time as they create a shop frontage which does justice to the ancient and wonderful city in which we live.
Well its the latest craze to hit Dublin. Last year we had milkshake bars making yummy shakes from every conceivable chocolate bar. This year its the turn of Ye Olde Sweetie Shopes… here are some recent pop-ups (in the parlance of the times)
Temple Bar
Fownes Street
Dame Street…Aul Mr Simms
More tackiness for Westmoreland Street. I dispair!
Fexco Currency Exchange had put in for PP for new signage. Ignoring the fact they already illegally installed a protruding sign recently.
Dwgs: http://www.dublincity.ie/AnitePublicDocs/00367902.pdf
App No: WEB1062/12
I hope someone has the energy to object?
Ah yes, recently posted on the Westmoreland/D’Olier Street threads. I thought about objecting but its a waste of my time. The truth is it is resented..by the City Council which views public interaction as a nuisance and by the city business community which just wants to do whatever it wants to buildings such as these…public comment not welcome.
Having observed how public comments to the proposed Mountjoy Square ACA were dealt with – ie not one submission taken on board – I have lost faith.
Let the crap accumulate…
(I am only this grumpy because of the rain)
Progress of the worst kind on Batchelors Walk and the eponymous pub mentioned above back in Nov. Just when you were wondering if anything else could be added to the building (as regards banners, signage, etc)….then…
LED comes of age…adding vibrancy and vitality to the street!
Looks like they sold a jobs lot…
and then popped around to Capel Street
Both these locations are ACAs – whatever that means. I spotted a senior DCC planning official looking quizically at the signs on Capel Street.
What can be done to transform a high-street for less than £500,000. A bit of joined up thinking on Leyton High Road in East London. Sadly something so cheap and simple is way beyond most Irish planners and Councils.
Interesting to see that the two LED signs on Capel Street referred to above have now been removed.
Elsewhere, on O’Connell Street, here is an interesting outcome with that perennial problem causer in the city Spar. Spar just cant seem to get its look and branding right so that it effectively reflects its businesses while also being respectful of the buildings and streetscapes within which its businesses sit.
In this instance, the Spar at 63-64 O’Connell Street has applied for an now been granted permission for new signage. Its worth reading through the planners report and the submission by An Taisce which has itself made much of poor quality signage in the city centre. I thought this point in the Planners Report was interesting:
In addition to the above, the various attachments to the building (projecting signs etc) do not have the benefit of permission and these should be removed. Finally, it is noted that the
coffee shop company ‘Insomnia’ operates from the shop. The applicant should be asked to
clarify if this has permission.This business of installing a franchise within an existing shop has been going for quite some time. It has allowed Subway for example to circumvent the policy of limiting further fast-food units within the ACA and ASPC. It seems to have happened with impunity so its curious that it has been referred to now. From the thread of correspondence it appears that the applicant suggested that the coffee shop use did not require planning permission as it was a subsidiary use. The planner has countered this however and required a formal grant of permission. The matter has also been referred to the Planning Enforcement Section (I cant imagine that will have them quaking in their boots).
@lauder wrote:
More tackiness for Westmoreland Street. I dispair!
Fexco Currency Exchange had put in for PP for new signage. Ignoring the fact they already illegally installed a protruding sign recently.
Dwgs: http://www.dublincity.ie/AnitePublicDocs/00367902.pdf
App No: WEB1062/12
I hope someone has the energy to object?
Refused.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/letters/2012/0901/1224323461522.html
Sir, – One of the shared virtues of the shops featured in the “Best Shops in Ireland” feature (Magazine, August 25th), other than excellent customer service and distinctive produce, is the almost universal high quality of their shopfronts. Whether the delightful Victorian frontage of Lilliput Stores, or the immaculately presented Hickey’s Bakery in Clonmel, most fronts exhibit the basic rules of good shopfront design and presentation, based on restraint in signage, sophisticated use of colour, and a complete harmony with the upper floor facades of their buildings. It is remarkable how simple interventions displayed by these businesses have contributed so much to their respective towns and streets.
The art of good shopfront design across Ireland was made almost extinct during the boom years, with retailers clamouring over each other to shout loudest on the streetscape with over-scaled fascias, garish colours and signage plastered across upper-floor facades. Similarly, the scourge of ignorantly detailed reproduction frontages did a disservice to the design intuition of genuine historic shopfronts, while many contemporary models failed to accommodate signage adequately or relate to their wider host building.
The simple, classically informed vernacular architecture of most Irish towns demands a greater understanding by shop owners and a guiding hand on the part of planning authorities to maximise the potential of our commercial streets, especially in these recessionary times when supporting local trade is so important. This is also true of Dublin, where the main streets of the city, some of which have been experiencing a marked decline in quality presentation, could benefit enormously from greater shopfront design guidance as part of a city-wide initiative to improve the public face of the capital. – Yours, etc,
GRAHAM HICKEY,
Dublin Civic Trust,
Castle Street,
Dublin 2.Hard to keep up with the nosedive Dublin Shopfronts are taking lately.
Speaking of Dublin Civic Trust its 2 years since this report was welcomed by City Council and businesses in the area http://issuu.com/dctrust/docs/capel_street_and_the_city_markets_-_revised_2011
Mary Street, yesterday
Hah, brilliant photoshop, Stephen! 🙁
That’s it, I’m going to head into town with a high-vis jacket and a lump hammer, and do a job on a few shops around the city. I’m then going to pay a visit to Civic Offices and deliver a barrow-load of illegal signs like severed heads to the Planning Department.
*sigh*
The idea that ‘oh its the recession’ doesn’t hold water if the streets and surrounding streets are dragged down as so clearly has happened in O’Connell Street and surrounding streets like Westmoreland Street and is being allowed to spread out as a general policy.
Perhaps a group should get together to report illegal banners to avoid the problems of reports coming from an individual.
I’d be generally interested in what the Councils reply is to as to why they aren’t enforcing things, and allowing banners to run amock across the city.
Saw a big banner in Rathgar covering Superquinn only yesterday.@davidarthurs wrote:
The idea that ‘oh its the recession’ doesn’t hold water if the streets and surrounding streets are dragged down as so clearly has happened in O’Connell Street and surrounding streets like Westmoreland Street and is being allowed to spread out as a general policy.
Perhaps a group should get together to report illegal banners to avoid the problems of reports coming from an individual.
I’d be generally interested in what the Councils reply is to as to why they aren’t enforcing things, and allowing banners to run amock across the city.
Saw a big banner in Rathgar covering Superquinn only yesterday.That’s a good idea. We could start a blog to catalog (with pictures, much like has been done here) each offending shopfront on O’Connell Street and Westmoreland St, update each post with a copy of all correspondence with DCC, and then do quarterly updates on what exactly has improved/disimproved/stayed the same. It could even be fun.
I see the trend of non-existent shop front regulation continues with the announcement that Dubarry, the upmarket Irish shoe retailer, is to open a flagship store at 35 College Green in October. Nothing too serious there, and a very welcome boost for this prominent building, only for the fact that its application to Dublin City Council for moving into one of the most prominent Protected Structures in the State – the former Bank of Scotland premises slap bang in the middle of College Green facing the Bank of Ireland – has been granted exempted development!
Yes, yet again, as with Starbucks and TGI Friday’s on Westmoreland Street and Fleet Street – as well as a number of other recent cases across the city – Dublin City Council are deliberately adopting not so much a ‘light touch’, as a ‘don’t touch with a ten foot pole’ policy in relation to new businesses setting up in the city centre, in a typically provincial ‘sure isn’t it good for d’town’ stance.
It is simply breathtaking how the erection of new signage, replacement of entrance doors, repainting, and no doubt other attendant works to the shop front and platform here, can be considered exempted development under any circumstances, never mind on a Protected Structure overlooking the premier space in the city.
This case is far from isolated, and marks a very serious departure from accepted planning practice, highlighting just how disturbingly out of control the management of the city centre’s physical environment is becoming.
What are we to make of Dublin City Council one wonders…
The planning process in the city is in tatters. Most changes such as the one about dont even make it to the desk of a city planner, they just proceed regardless. Planning Enforcement is non-exsitent or is probably non-exsitent…a cursory glance at the latest Annual Report will tell you nothing of the Council’s performance in this area.
Public consultations are now pointless exercised…witness the Mountjoy ACA Variation (all submissions ignored), Grafton Street Part VIII works (all submissions ignored and no Planner’s Report published), the Public Realm Strategy (not even a record of the submission made).
The Public Realm Strategy is in place but its not apparent that public realm works are being coordinated through the “team” or undertaken in the spirit of the strategy. The Thomas Street QBC (granted Part VIII permission in 2010) will proceed with a 4 lane carriageway through the historic heart of the city, repeating the mistakes of High Street and Patrick Street. Needy street such as Parnell Street East are left to rot while its western section get repaved without even so much as a mention from the City Council. The City Council Roads Department cracks happily away with paving schemes on Talbot Street and Parnell Street West (bit of a budget there?) while College Green remains a jumbled mess with its half completed lighting scheme. The Markets are continues to rot while the Capel Street ACA seems doomed to lie half completed until the funds appear in the distant future. The flagship O’Connell Street scheme…images of which litter City Council publications…already looks a bit tired and uncared for. Trees are missing, uplighting no longer works, the street furniture keeps being adding to, the area around the Spire looks barren and unfinished.
What a city….
From the Irish Times:
Spar for corner of Dame/George’s St
THE SPREAD of convenience stores in Dublin city centre continues. Spar has just agreed rental terms on the former Phillips shop at the corner of Dame Street and South Great George’s Street where the floor area is 111sq m (1,200sq ft). The new tenant will be paying a rent of €120,000 for the premises which adjoins Spar’s other shop on Dame Street. Ben Pearson of Bogle estate agents handled the letting and Declan Bagnall acted for the tenant.
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