Developer Noel Smyth’s Fitzwilliam Real Estate is to lodge plans for a nine-storey, 245-bedroom hotel at Arnotts in the coming days.
The hotel scheme will involve the demolition and decommissioning of the top three open air levels of Arnotts’ multi-storey car park resulting in the removal of 145 car spaces.
The lodging of the plans comes 10 months after Mr Smyth’s firm sought permission for a 12-storey, 159-unit build to rent scheme on the same site at Arnotts.
That involved the construction of a 12-storey over-basement element fronting Williams’ Lane; a five-storey element over Arnotts’ multi-storey car park; and a two-storey element over Arnotts’ store.
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That proposal also involved the removal of the top three floor levels of Arnotts’ car park. Earlier this year, Dublin City Council requested further information on the scheme and the applicants earlier this month sought a six-month extension in which to lodge the new information.
Mr Smyth is now planning to put forward another plan for the site.
In October 2018, Mr Smyth secured permission for a nine-storey hotel comprising 257 bedrooms on the same site and with no substantial works on that scheme having advanced, planning permission will have now lapsed necessitating the new application.
That scheme attracted two objections and the support of Fáilte Ireland, with the tourism agency telling the council that the hotel “would be a valuable addition to the accommodation stock in Dublin and would go some way to addressing the accommodation challenge being faced by the city”.
Planning consultant Tom Phillips told Dublin City Council the 2018 proposal would “facilitate the provision of a state-of-the-art accommodation facility, whilst significantly improving the character of the area”.
Mr Phillips said the hotel scheme “represents a very positive proposal for Middle Abbey Street and Williams Lane responding positively to the site’s existing context”.
The planning consultant contended that the proposed development “can be comfortably accommodated on the site and… it is important to highlight that the development site is strategically located in the city centre on an under-utilised site”.
