Neglect of cherished landmark symbolises Beirut’s wider malaise

Saifi Village sits at the eastern extremity of the Beirut Central District (BCD), the area that was resurrected, quite literally, from the rubble of civil war in the 1990s.

The idea behind Saifi was presumably to create an oasis of bijoux apartments, boutiques, cafes and restaurants amid the hubbub of commerce and retail that was meant to be going on in the wider BCD.

But, rather like the rest of the downtown as the 191-hectare plot of land is more commonly known, Saifi has wilted after an initial burst of sunny optimism. There are still occupied retail spaces – mainly art galleries and boutiques – and there is a gym as well as a Ferrari dealership that sits rather awkwardly on Saifi’s southern perimeter, but the once vibrant cafe in the district’s small piazza has shut down, while Johnny Farah, the leather goods designer whose boutique was a Saifi landmark, is holding a “relocation sale” and I fear more retailers will fold up their tents and disappear into the night.

Not a lot is happening these days. You might glimpse the odd gym-goer and the half-dozen hipsters sitting on the sidewalk outside Meat the Fish, the quirky restaurant whose customers eat on crates, but the most of human activity in Saifi comes from the elderly, and more often than not crumpled, security guards who patrol the cobbled streets for no apparent reason other than to give off a faintly ridiculous air of comic menace, and the concierges from the residential buildings with whom they have understandably built up something of a bond.

But they are outnumbered by an even more bizarre species: the steady stream of newlyweds and graduates who flock to Saifi to be photographed, presumably because they believe it to be the most picturesque part of Beirut. That it is practically empty no doubt adds to its appeal.

I first noticed them a few years ago when they would pose under the pergola that sits on Saifi’s western extremity by the side of a busy road. But by some kind of social osmosis, and doubtless because with more interest came demand for more locations, they have drifted eastwards into the main square and down the cobbled streets whose sandblasted facades were lovingly rebuilt by Syrian artisans, and the manicured gardens to the north.

Where there were once havea-go photographers, there are now semi-professional teams; assistants holding reflectors and attentive makeup artists and when once-coy couples would shyly get out of their car and sheepishly pose amid the din of the traffic, they now come with relatives, maids of honour and bridesmaids. And there are props: one couple last week posed grappling with a giant wedding ring in a mock battle of the sexes. Oh the fun.

The late, former prime minister Rafik Hariri clearly had greater ambitions for this corner of his urban master plan than to see it used as backdrop for nuptial memories but, then again, ever since 2005, when Mr Hariri met his fiery end in a car bomb in front of the St Georges hotel, Lebanon has been wildly off message.

The BCD, restored and managed by Solidere, the controversial real estate development company founded by Mr Hariri, was meant to be the jewel in Lebanon’s crown, signalling to the world that the country was once again open for business as a playground for Arab tourists. And they duly came and all was good for a while as the sun shone and the Lebanese made hay. But in 2012, amid very real fears that kidnap gangs were targeting wealthy Arabs, they stopped coming. Rapidly cooling relations with Iran did not help as the state of Lebanon’s normally freewheeling tourism and hospitality sector went from bad to worse.

“Last year, we were on our knees,” the owner of a prominent Beirut hotel told me on Friday night. “This year things are better. The number of visitors is up because all the GCC countries apart from the UAE have lifted the travel ban and we are seeing familiar faces again. But if it weren’t for the Iraqis, Jordanians and Egyptians who came in the past few years we’d be wiped out by now.”

So for now, for the tourist sector at least, Beirut is off the critical list. The president, Michel Aoun, whose election has been held up as a sign of restored confidence in this tiny Mediterranean country, has said he wants to make the economy a priority. Given that no government in the past 25 years has either done this or been allowed to do this, makes his latest declaration sound somewhat hollow. In any case, the Lebanese economy has always been driven by the private sector; give Lebanon stability and it will do the rest.

That same evening, over dinner, a visiting Englishman suggested that Beirut could only really announce it was back when the St Georges hotel, closed since the first round of skirmishes in the civil war in 1975, reopened for business. What was stopping it?, he wondered. Surely it would be the biggest hotel story of the year anywhere in the world.

He had a point, but then again he did not know of the bitter, ongoing land dispute between Solidere and the hotel’s stubborn owner Fady El Khoury, which stymied his plans to restore the hotel to its former glory. Apparently there is an issue with beach access and neither side is backing down.

Surely Solidere should let Mr El Khoury realise his dream and have the foresight to see that a renovated St Georges hotel would deliver muchneeded glamour that would in turn pollinate a moribund BCD with its fairy dust.

But, then again, if Solidere did think outside the box it would never have let Saifi become never more than a backdrop for newlyweds.