Works due soon to upgrade the busy hang-out streets that branch off Grafton Street

The lace of streets to the east of Grafton Street teemed with people on Saturday afternoon.

As South Anne Street branched off, people sat outside the cafes and restaurants under the warm and cloudy sky. Pint-sippers stood at the corner by John Kehoe’s pub.

That the transformation of the wider Grafton Street area into a place for outdoors dining and socialising was brought on by the pandemic is easily forgotten now, said Labour Councillor Dermot Lacey on Tuesday afternoon.

“It’s very much a post-Covid thing, maybe the one good thing to come from it,” Lacey says.

Still, while the area is lively, it is also cluttered. There are sandwich board signs, a few Moby shared e-bikes parked awkwardly on the road, and bin bags being left out on the street in the evenings.

South Anne Street itself is a patchwork of asphalt, concrete, and several shades of tarmacadam.

But in May, works are due to start to fix up the streetscape and change all that, councillors were told at a meeting of the South East Area Committee meeting on Monday afternoon.

“It’s a really large public realm project. It’s the biggest one we’ve delivered in the city centre as one project,” said senior executive engineer Marie Gavin.

Dublin City Council’s plan for the web of streets and lanes that lies between Grafton Street and Dawson Street includes 3,500sqm of granite paving, 11 more trees, and 10 public benches.

It also includes a bronze artwork in the heart of the shopping district, one the artist Helen Hughes intends, she says, to be a musing on consumerism.

All of this is about trying to put a bit more order and colour in the city centre, said Lacey, the Labour councillor.

“And one of the things we’re trying to encourage here is that you don’t have to go in and get a paid cup of coffee to sit and talk,” he said. “We want places where you can rest without having to shop.”

Greener, wider, and safer

In April 2023, Dublin City Councillors approved the scheme to do up South Anne Street, Lemon Street, Duke Street, Duke Lane and Anne’s Lane, as part of its internal planning process known as Part 8.

After that, the scheme moved to detailed design and procurement.

“We’re happy to say it’s been completely designed and delivered in-house by staff within the City Architects and the Road Design Division,” said Gavin, the council senior executive engineer.

The council had almost 300 submissions to its public consultation, Gavin said, recapping the earlier feedback they had.

More than 92 percent of respondents said greater space for pedestrians on South Anne Street during the pandemic improved their experiences of the area, she said. “People were generally happy with the changes that have happened.”

But there are still issues with illegal parking and the space is difficult to navigate for people with mobility or visual issues, she said.

Public seating, bike parking, more trees, even better access for pedestrians, and improved quality outdoor dining were among the things people said they wanted, she said.

So, the council is putting in 10 benches and 11 extra bike stands, she said.

“We’ve got new rest areas with public benches on Lemon Street, Duke Street and South Anne Street,” said Gavin.

To green, the council plans to plant 11 new sophora japonica trees between Duke Street and South Anne Street, and 60 in-ground plants and 600 bulbs, she said. “We’re trying to get the biodiversity improved.”

The area is congested, she said. “It’s a very vehicle dominated area. You’ve got delivery vans parking on the footpath.”

The scheme envisages safe and clearer routes with wider footpaths and a disabled parking bay, in an effort to make it universally accessible, she said.

Tactile strips on Grafton Street will be linked up so people with visual impairments can better navigate the area, she said. “And we’ve kept all street furniture away from this area.”

On Lemon Street, they are looking to create a play installation for kids, she said. “They’re gonna be quite small. They don’t take up very much space. But it’s just something for kids to interact with as they move throughout.”

Two water bottle filling stations are also going in, one on Duke Street, and one on South Anne Street, she said.

Two hundred water fountains

Gavin said the council’s contractor hopes to go on site in May, with the scheme rolled out in phases, and done by January 2027, she said.

It is expected to cost €6.1 million, including VAT, she said.

The area is busy. It’s choc-a-bloc outside the pubs during football games, but more so when delivery vehicles come into the area, said Mannix Flynn, an independent councillor.

“My own concern would be that, since we’ve done up Grafton Street the past number of years, it just looks very shabby,” he says.

Vehicles use the street early in the morning, he said. “It’s like an autobahn, with massive 40-foot trucks in some cases, and huge vehicles trying to traverse that small space.”

The plans are welcome, but it would be a shame to spend all this money and repeat that, he said.

Gavin said there are not supposed to be deliveries after 11am but it’s not really enforced.

The council is working with a parking enforcement officer, she said. “Once this goes in, it will be a lot more obvious that this is an area they’re not supposed to be in after a certain hour.”

Automated bollards are to go at the Dawson Street end of South Anne Street, she said, and at the western end of Duke Street.

How did the council arrive at the number of water stations? asked Labour Councillor Fiona Connelly.

Fine Gael Councillor Danny Byrne said the figure of two stations jumped out at him. “Surely we can have more than two. I’d like to see two hundred. Or a lot more than two.”

They aren’t the easiest thing to put in, Gavin said. “We need to fill an application to Irish Water for every single water fountain that you have to put in.”

There are also maintenance costs and water tests, she said, and while they would like to put them in everywhere they need to be maintained properly.

Shiny things for shiny places

The council also intends to install a bronze sculpture on South Anne Street, Gavin told the committee. It has commissioned artist Helen Hughes.

On Tuesday morning, Hughes entered her studio in The Complex arts centre on Arran Street East.

It was filled with colourful sculptures, many of which are destined for a solo exhibition later this year in Ballina, Co. Mayo, she said.

There were tiny table-like objects made from melted plastic, and curving tubes of white mesh and wax. An orange rubbery box on her table jiggled and collapsed into itself.

Hughes tends to work with items and materials that are volatile and deteriorate, she says, scrolling through photos on her phone.

But for South Anne Street, she is moving away from that. She is working with bronze.

Says Hughes: “This is also my first public art, which is exciting.”

She scrolled through pictures taken at a foundry earlier in the day, showing images of the bronze sculpture that is be installed on South Anne Street.

It is a large spherical shape, a bronze balloon, but wrinkled like a pumpkin and almost silvery.

It was cast in 34 separate pieces, she says. “And then they put it all together. Don’t ask me. But I was very happy with how it’s come out this morning.”

It’s not going to end up with a bronze finish, she says. “It’ll be finished in a powder coating like a car.”

The piece, as yet untitled, is a remake of a white 3D printed sculpture featured in her most recent exhibition, “And yes, Daydreamer, SurRender”, which was shown in the Roscommon Arts Centre last winter.

Part of her thinking for the deflated balloon is as a commentary on consumerism, she says.

“I’m bringing in shiny, glossy objects, and it’s a balloon that’s deflating, so it’s a little about that experience of buying, the joy, the shininess wearing away,” she says.

“I love shopping,” she says. “But it’s almost that false promise wearing off.”