Plans for new Dublin hotels appealed to watchdog
PLANS for two new hotels in Dublin with a total of almost 350 rooms have been appealed to An Bord Pleanála.
A unit of Dutch hotel company CitizenM received approval last month from Dublin City Council for a 247-bedroom development on a site fronting Bridge Street, close to St Patrick’s Cathedral. It will mark the company’s first property in Ireland. It already operates hotels at locations across Europe, the United States and Asia.
Its proposed scheme was the subject of a significant number of objections.
Among them was one made by Councillor Mannix Flynn on behalf of local residents.
“The development will have a negative impact on the community,” he told the Council. He claimed it would be “overbearing”
and “oppressive” to the houses in the vicinity.
He said bars at the hotel would “bring all the noise and nuisance associated with drinking in the city into this quiet tight-knit community”.
The site is occupied by an industrial warehouse that was formerly part of Jacob’s biscuit factory, and Molyneux House, comprising the converted and extended 19th century Molyneux Church.
The Dutch firm was asked to supply additional information in relation to the development and to address some concerns raised by the Council in relation to its likely impact on nearby residential properties.
Subsequent amendments were deemed acceptable by the Council.
“It is considered that the development will not seriously injure the residential or visual amenities of the area,” the Council’s planning officer noted.
A number of appeals to the granting of permission for the scheme have now been made to An Bord Pleanála. A decision on the case is due by the middle of June, according to the planning watchdog.
Plans for a 98-bedroom hotel by Cathedral Leisure have also been appealed to An Bord Pleanála.
That project, on a site that formed part of the former Boland’s bakery, was approved by the Council last month.
Cathedral Leisure is part of the Beannchor Group, which owns the five-star Merchant Hotel in Belfast.
Beannchor is owned by Bill Wolsey. The Dublin property, which would be the group’s first in the capital, is to be branded as a Bullitt Hotel. Beannchor opened its first Bullitt Hotel in Belfast in 2016.