In the north inner-city, a stand-off between the council and a long-standing culture space

Inside the D-Light studios was silent and shadowy on Sunday evening, as Agata Stoinska wandered through its first floor.

A partial face rose out of a wall on the staircase, a gramophone sat on a small table in a corner beside a photography exhibit, and a sign asked people to keep the doors closed because a kitten was running loose.

Stoinska walked downstairs to a room with rugged brick walls and a soft black floor. It was kitted out in September for dancing and yoga, she says. “It’s such a shame, because we haven’t used it.”

But it isn’t just this one room that is in limbo. Whether D-Light studios will ever open again here is a hanging question.

Dublin City Council plans to renovate the warehouse building to bring it up to fire-safety standards – and that is needed and is something the studio owners have pressed for for years, says Stoinska.

But the team behind D-Light have to move out to make that possible, and have no idea when those works will be done and what will happen to the building afterwards, she says.

The team hasn’t managed to agree a long term-lease with the council, says studio manager Stace Gill.  Their fear is that without one, if they move out, she says, they’ll never have a chance to get back in.

“If the lease situation had’ve been sorted, this would all have been a lot easier to navigate,” says Gill, “because we can’t leave the building without a lease”.

Dublin City Council hasn’t responded to queries about whether it is going to offer a lease to the studio or if it would allow D-Light to remain in the studio once essential works are completed.

A local institution

Stoinska opened D-Light Studios in this 19th-century warehouse on North Great Clarence Street in 2008, she says.

Her company, Stokeen Ltd, signed a three-year lease for the first floor from the property’s owner at the time, she says. “That was a rolling lease.”

• D-Light Studios, 46 North Great Clarence Street

The inside walls are mostly white because Stoinska always wanted this place to be a blank canvas, she said, walking around inside last Sunday. “And any project that comes in here could paint it if needed.”

That could be for television productions, photoshoots, art exhibitions, film screenings or live events, she says.

The studio never felt secure, and for years its managers thought they were on their way out, so in response to this, they decided to offer space to artists for as low a price as possible, Gill says. “We allocated around 25 percent to commercial bookings.”

In 2017, the studio also launched a residency award, providing an artist space for six months. Among those it has hosted are directors Bob Gallagher and Luke McManus, who developed his award-winning documentary North Circular while there.

In 2018, the residency was co-funded through the North East Inner City (NEIC) Initiative, a programme set up to regenerate the area – and the residency has been backed by Dublin City Council each year since.

Waiting for repairs

Even in 2008, the old building had issues right away, says Gill. “Roof leaks, floods, vandalism, everything. The building was in bits.”

After the previous leaseholder went into liquidation in 2010, and the National Assets Management Agency stepped in, she says. “And we were left in the building.”

Stoinska was putting a lot of her own money into patching up the building, Gill says.

In 2019, Dublin City Council acquired the building, with D-Light as the sitting tenants, according to a 2023 fire safety risk assessment by the consultancy firm PDN Associates.

Once the council took ownership of the building, it identified several fire-safety issues, Gill says. More than four years later, the necessary works haven’t yet been done.

The fire-safety report, commissioned by D-Light Studios, says the building needs a fire alarm system and adequate emergency lighting, and its exits on both floors need to be made compliant.

On Sunday, Stoinska stepped through a doorway on the first floor with a sign reading “studio will be out of service for renovations”.

Studio B is a long echoing room with high wooden ceilings and windows that look out onto Dunne Street.

The interior is largely bare. At the far end of the room, there is a sofa, armchair and chaise longue around a coffee table by a fireplace.

She wanders through the next large studio space, Studio A, which was used for TV productions, she says. “And for dance and yoga classes.”

It was Stoinska’s favourite and needed to be closed for these renovations in 2020, she says. “We thought it would just be temporary. But four years later, it’s still closed.”

The NEIC Programme Office has put in bits of money now and again to patch up the building.

A November 2020 report noted the need for refurbishments to the ground floor to compensate for the closure of Studio A upstairs pending larger fire-safety works.

The NEIC board approved €91,206, with the works due to be done by the end of that year, says the report.

The pandemic would have been the perfect time for these works to be carried out by the council in Studio A, Stoinska says. “But it didn’t happen.”

A bigger plan

Dublin City Council does have a much longer-term plan for the building that houses D-Light Studios, suggest council reports.

In 2020, Dublin City Council had put in for funding for the building as part of its application to the central government for north inner-city projects under the Urban Regional Development Fund.

It asked for €7.4 million towards a project expected to cost €9.8 million, shows the application from the time.

The plan was to repair and restore the building and bring it up to contemporary building standards of “accessibility, fire safety and energy performance”, says the application.

And, to replan the building for flexible use, it says, to continue arts and culture uses and “to provide opportunities and services for the local community, facilitate financially independent social enterprises and provide a cultural hub in the area”.

While Dublin City Council’s bid for funding for north inner-city projects was successful, it’s unclear if the granted amount – which was less than it applied for – included money for the North Great Clarence Street building.

The project isn’t mentioned in the council’s current capital programme, which runs from 2024 to 2026.

D-Light Studio launched a petition in early February, calling on support to press the council to agree a lease with them, after four years of failed negotiations.

Stoinska says they are afraid that without that, they won’t return. “We have no guarantee that we can come back to the building.”

They haven’t been told a timeline for works, she says. “And there is no alternative location, and there won’t be because there is no building like this.”

Dublin City Council didn’t respond to queries as to why past planned renovation works had been delayed or what the timeline is for the fire safety works.

Labour Senator Marie Sherlock says the council’s position on fire safety works is understandable. “They’re in the horrors if something would ever happen. They would be held to account.”

But, the council’s position isn’t clear at the moment, and they need to commit to a lease, says Sherlock. “Then D-Light can vacate the studios for the works to commence. But there is a stalemate on agreeing to the lease in terms of the previous lease and what use was made of the building.”

Gill says the uncertainty and waiting is exhausting. “We don’t have money to pay our staff. We’ve lost tenants.”

“Now something miraculous has to come, because we’ve been resuscitating ourselves for so long,” she says, “and now, how do we bring it back to life? I don’t know.”