If plans to turn the property known as “Provincial House” on High Street Omagh into a boutique hotel come to pass, such a development could do a lot to regenerate the area.
15 – 17 High Street Omagh, is a grade B listed building dating from the late 1800’s. Now vacant, it was a former bank and according to the listed building records it is “the earliest surviving purpose-built bank on Omagh High Street”. The official record goes on to state that: “The ornate mid-nineteenth-century detailed stonework on the façade displays fine craftsmanship reflecting its robust character as a significant civic building”.
Despite its history and architectural merits, the fact that it has sat unused for a number of years, has rendered it slightly invisible – as though it were hiding in plain sight. The proposed hotel could do for it what the opening of the Merchant Hotel did for the former Ulster Bank headquarters in Belfast
A hotel is one of the few types of commercial uses in a town that can attract customers and contribute to the vitality of the street at all hours of the day and that is important for both existing businesses and for visitors to the town centre generally.
At present the upper part of High Street is dominated by the likes of banks and other office type buildings, and so after normal business hours it can become rather soulless. Although High Street is well lit, after dark it is can be a lonely area; the presence of a hotel with its frequent coming and going of visitors and residents throughout the evening, could create some passive surveillance and an altogether more welcoming environment.
It has been said in the past that Omagh had turned its back on the river; however that could not be said of the Strule Arts Centre which enjoys a riverside setting, but by being positioned away from the flow of pedestrians, it turned its back on the people instead.
When the former Town Hall on High Street (where the Council’s “Connect Centre” is now) was demolished and the Strule Arts Centre built as a replacement theatre, it was, for me, a missed opportunity to do something special for the existing public realm. Had the arts centre been located right on High Street it would be more readily accessible to the hundreds of visitors it would hope to attract, it would continue to watch over the passers-by after the neighbouring businesses had closed for the day, and, it could have given the area the type of pizzazz that an office building is unlikely to deliver.
The plan to turn 15 High Street into a boutique hotel has the potential to regenerate and showcase a beautiful building in one of the most distinguished parts of the town, contribute to both the day time and evening time economy, and add to the overall mix of town centre services.
