the centre actually owned this building, having bought it in a then run-down area. however, the property become rather valuable. there was an opportunity to create a large civic project, when a partnership between city quay school to the rear of the centre and a community hall adjacent to the centre were brought into a scheme for an innovative socio/cultural project at the entrance to the docklands, then at the beginning of its transformation. the scheme needed a piece of vacant land that linked all the properties but dublin dockland development authority rejected the idea, although both dublin city council and the arts council, plus all the local representatives supported the project. as a result, city arts centre became an anomaly within the dockland development. sandy fitzgerald stepped down as director of the centre in 2000, after 27 years. city arts centre, under the directorship of declan mcgonagle, decided to sell the building and to close down its on-site programmes and to engage in what it called the civil arts inquiry, a two-year-long series of meetings, events and symposia aimed at formulating the future needs and future direction of community art. this process proved to be extremely expensive and drained a good deal of the initial capital raised through the sale of the building. however, a new centre was opened on bachelor's walk in 2010 with another name change, this time simply called cityarts.