The owner of one of Ireland’s best known pubs, The Temple Bar, Tom Cleary has lodged for a new hotel for the Temple Bar area in Dublin.
This follows Mr Cleary’s Chambers Properties Ltd making a planning application with Dublin City Council for a new 47 room boutique hotel facing onto Dame Street and Eustace Street.
The application involves the change of use of a building known as the Shamrock Chambers which is a five storey over basement building comprised of a vacant restaurant, shop and vacant office uses to a six storey hotel.
The lodging of the plans follows Tom Cleary and Jackie Cleary’s Temple Inns Ltd last year paying out more than €11 million for the adjacent Temple Bar Lane hotel adjacent to The Temple Bar.
A planning report by Thornton O’Connor Town Planning lodged with the new Chambers Properties Ltd 47 room hotel plan states that the hotel site is “in the very centre of Dublin’s tourism offering in terms of attractions, entertainment, dining/drinking and culture”.
The Thornton O’Connor report states that the planned restaurant/bar will add to the vibrancy of Dame Street.
Patricia Thornton states that “the proposed change of use and additional storey are a positive proposition for Shamrock Chambers, bringing an under-utilised but historic and characterful property back into a more active and sustainable state and use”.
Ms Thornton also points out that “the design, including the new storey, respects the existing building and its environs, including the merits of the Conservation Area”.
The report further contends that the proposed hotel, which will have its main entrance onto Eustace Street, “will not result in an over-concentration of hotels/aparthotel accommodation in this part of the city as has been recently assessed by the council”.
Ms Thornton points out that previously, Dublin City Council granted planning permission for a 39 bedroom hotel on the same site in February 2018 but that planning permission has since expired.
Cantrell and Crowley Architects have been commissioned to design the hotel and a design statement lodged with the application states that the design brief was to develop a scheme containing a number of rooms to make the business viable which necessitated the additional storey.
A decision is due on the application next month.
