Creative Consultancy Services - Product Identification/Visitor Experience Plan and Business Plan for a Visitor Attraction of scale at the former Lennard Arms Hotel property, Clones, Co. Monaghan.

The development of a visitor experience of scale at the former Lennard Arms Hotel, Clones, is one of Monaghan County Council’s key priority regeneration projects in the Ballybay-Clones Municipal District. Now in the ownership of Monaghan County Council, the former hotel, a vacant historic building in the town centre, is a complex of buildings dating from the late 18th or early 19th century. As a Protected Structure, the building is an important landmark and has huge potential to add to the offering in the town centre. Its reuse, with a focus on tourism will result in the adaptive and innovative repurposing of this vacant building. The development of a visitor attraction of scale at the former hotel will act as both an anchor and as a driver of growth in visitor numbers to the historic town centre, activating a currently underperforming sector of the town’s economy. It will also be the centre piece in developing a network of experiences that collectively have the potential to realise Clones town centre as a credible and vibrant tourist hub in addition to it providing a good base from which to explore the wider rural area of the County and therefore contribute to further growth in visitor numbers to the County as a whole. Once the project is completed, it will be a key offering and strategic tourism asset providing a vibrant hub of activity in the heart of the town. The project will secure the positive integration of this socially, architecturally, and historically important building into daily public life and secure the lasting presence of this Protected Structure.