Under council’s 5% policy, developers are delivering arts spaces – but who will pay for the fit-outs?

As the sun beamed down on Upper Sheriff Street on Sunday afternoon, the smoky smell of somebody’s barbeque wafted through the area.

Much of the northern side of the street was a fenced-off construction site, for a series of apartment complexes, which according to a brown metal sign, fitted with a screen, made up Carriage Works, a new build-to-rent residential development.

The screen within the sign flashed up a QR code, inviting passers-by to book a viewing for one of its apartments.

In the middle of the towering scheme stood a four-storey block, which the large white letters on its flat roof said is known as the Juno Building.

Unlike many of the surrounding apartments, the interior wasn’t fitted out. Its front facade was still partially obscured by scaffolding and hoarding.

The ground-floor interior, while not bare, was filled only with construction materials, more unassembled metal scaffolding, bins, cardboard boxes, and a lime green scissor lift.

The Juno Building, according to the minutes of Dublin City Council’s Artist Workspace Committee meeting from 23 March, is a four-storey cultural centre that is being developed in tandem with the 700 apartments that make up the Carriage Works scheme.

It is, the meeting minutes say, a key example of the council’s current “5 percent” policy, introduced by the council as part of its 2022 to 2028 city development plan, and which is intended to help remedy the deficit of cultural spaces in Dublin.

The policy applies to developments larger than 10,000 sqm, and the Juno Building is one of the first projects that can properly demonstrate how they can work with this requirement, said Social Democrats Councillor Cat O’Driscoll. “It was from the design stage that this was being looked at.”

Unlike Marshall Yards, a neighbouring housing development, which includes plans for an exhibition space within the ground floor of one of its buildings, the Juno Building was specifically built for cultural purposes, O’Driscoll says. “It wasn’t built and then retrofitted to suit a cultural space.”

But, one of the dilemmas that the council is encountering is the question of who will actually pay to fit-out these spaces.

Even in cases where artists believe they can make a space functional, finding the money to carry out works like doing up the floors, ceilings and lights could create an impediment, says O’Driscoll. “Even if they could agree to a rent that isn’t the commercial rent, they are looking at the fit-out being absolutely extortionate.”

The expectation may be that the council or the Arts Council would step in and pay for the fit-out, she says. “But, it’s never been in the conversations of how we fund organisations up until now.”

“So we’re seeing that as a barrier,” she says.

Heap of interest

In 2021, An Bord Pleanála gave developer Glenveagh Living Limited its approval to build 702 apartments on the site of the former Castleforbes Business Park.

Among the nine buildings that would make up the development, the application included retail and restaurant space, crèche and a cultural and community building, according to the ABP inspector’s report.

Later, in August 2021, real estate, development and asset manager Eagle Street Partners announced on their website that they had signed a €78.5 million contract to buy the site.

Practical works were completed in the third quarter of 2025, Eagle Street’s website says.

When the council’s Artist Workspace Committee convened on 26 March of this year, the cultural building, now referred to as the Juno Building, came up in their discussions, the minutes from that meeting show.

It was, the minutes say, cited as a key example of the 5 percent policy being put into practice.

Right now, “a whole heap” of potential tenants from Arts Council-funded organisations are expressing an interest to operate on different floors, Labour Councillor Darragh Moriarty said on Monday. 

“I think that’s the model that they’ve decided to operate rather than have a single tenant,” he said.

Financial barriers

Among the issues that the workspace committee is attempting to grapple with are establishing appropriate levels of rent, and whether the leases should reflect community and cultural use, rather than commercial rates, the March minutes say.

During the committee’s previous meeting, in November 2025, the minutes show that its members were worried that the cost of fitting out the spaces provided under the 5 percent policy could be a barrier to activating the spaces.

Marshall Yards, in East Wall, which is also owned by Eagle Street, and had been viewed by up to 40 arts organisations, is estimated to cost €2.5 million for its floors, ceilings and lighting, those minutes show.

Developers build the shell, but the spaces themselves are blank, says O’Driscoll, the Social Democrats councillor. “They don’t put in, maybe, water fixtures, a bathroom, outlets.”

Fitting out Juno could “amount to several million euro”, the minutes from the March committee meeting say.

A spokesperson for Eagle Street did not comment when asked on Monday about who would cover the fit-out costs in Juno and Marshall Yards, nor did they respond when asked if they had a timeline for when the spaces would be occupied.

But, according to the minutes from the March workspace committee meeting, the developer is keen to see Juno occupied within the year, “creating a level of urgency around resolving these issues”.

It is possible that developers may look for the council to get involved by contributing towards these fit-outs, City Arts Officer Ray Yeates said on Monday. 

“But, with so many of these proposals being made now, they all have to be considered strategically and with the elected members as to how we go about it,” he said.