It seems that Bono “I’m King of the World” has failed to impress his opponents for his plans to expand the Clarence Hotel in Dublin.
Michael Smith, a former chairman at An Taisce, an independent planning watchdog, attended the U2 frontman's wine and dine woo-fest last September. He described the Irish singer’s plans as “an old fashioned money-driven, anti-environmental exploit".
What, Bono? Anti-AIDS, anti-war, peace-and-love-loving Bono? Surely not.
Bono – AKA Paul Hewson - wants to triple the 177-year-old hotel in size and also add a panoramic glass bar to the top. The €150m plans would mean tearing down four adjacent Georgian buildings, gutting the hotel and expanding it to 140 rooms.
Smith also compared Bono’s behaviour to that of other “private jet-addicted property speculator feeding on Ireland’s greedy zeitgeist”. Ouch.
Bono, who bought the 49-room property in 1993 with guitarist ‘The Edge’, has been criticised for his plans, with opponents saying his plans to keep the exteriors of the building alone are a “discredited and meaningless act of historical preservation".
“If assessed for good old-fashioned rock star glamour, this proposal is a success. Unfortunately for the owners, the Clarence is not a pair of sunglasses,” Smith wrote in his written appeal against the project.
Wise words indeed.