The Bord Gáis Energy Theatre and Westbury owners, John and Bernadette Gallagher, have secured permission to redevelop a 1990s office block in Dublin 4.
The Gallagher’s family office, Crownway Investments, applied in April for permission to refurbish and extend an office building they own on Burlington Road called Temple Chambers.
The proposal would involve retrofitting the existing block and adding a new extension, which would increase the size of office space on the 0.12 hectare site by almost two thirds.
Dublin City Council has approved the plans submitted by Crownway Investments Unlimited Company, which is ultimately owned by an Isle of Man-based entity of the same name.
RM Block
Located off Mespil Road, the existing five-storey office building spans 2,230sq m. It was previously occupied by the law firm Addleshaw Goddard.
The redevelopment project has proposed the construction of a new six-storey extension on to the side of the current block, which would increase the size of the office space on site by 61 per cent to 3,584sq m.
At present, part of the building is being used as the head office of the Gallagher family’s hospitality group, The Doyle Collection, which includes The Westbury, The Croke Park Hotel and The River Lee in Cork. Bernadette Gallagher is the daughter of PV Doyle, who founded the hotel group.
Gallagher’s hospitality portfolio also includes hotels in London, such as The Bloomsbury and The Marylebone, and The Dupont Circle in Washington DC.
Crownway was set up by the Gallagher family in 2002 to act as their family office. It has been focused on investments in property, financial services, infrastructure and hospitality sectors.
Notable deals the firm has been involved in include a transaction to take Jury’s Doyle Hotel group private in 2005 and the acquisition of the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre for €28 million in 2014.
Other assets listed in the family office’s portfolio include an office block facing St Stephen’s Green that was most recently occupied by jobs listing firm Indeed, Avoca’s store on Suffolk Street and The Millennium Tower in Grand Canal Dock.
It also controls office and retail properties in the Polish city Wroclaw that it acquired in 2013.
Before Crownway Investments, John Gallagher set up security and fire systems firm the Magnum Group in 1983. That business was sold to Thorn plc 13 years later.
He also established Celtic Waste, which rebranded as Greenstar in 1999, and went on to become Ireland’s largest provider of waste landfill infrastructure and recycling services. It was sold to NTR plc in 2001.
John Gallagher holds a 2.4 per cent stake in Irish Continental Group (ICG). Last week, the Sunday Times reported Gallagher has agreed to sell his shareholding to the company’s chief executive Eamonn Rothwell, who is leading a buyout of the firm.
It was reported Gallagher, who has close to 3.6 million shares in the business, made a commitment to back the €8 per share bid and stands to earn €28.8 million.
