An interesting redevelopment opportunity in leafy Dublin 6 hits the market this week through Lisney, which is seeking €1.5 million for a listed former nursing home.

The Molyneux Asylum for Blind Females, whose last resident left in 2012, sits on a site of 0.74 acres with frontage to both Leeson Park and Upper Leeson Street. It is zoned Z2 – “to protect and/or improve the amenities of residential conservation areas” – under the Dublin City Development Plan 2011-2017.

This is a substantial granite-faced, three-storey period building of 1,105sq m (11,900sq ft), with an internal lift servicing all floors. The sale also includes a rear enclosed courtyard with caretaker’s bungalow built in the 1970s.

While in use as a nursing home, it accommodated 25 patients. Its current layout contains a variety of different sized rooms, some of them very large.

Variety of uses

“Although in need of general modernisation, it represents an extraordinary opportunity for a variety of users, such as schools and educational occupiers, embassy offices, embassy residence, offices, institutional uses, community and religious uses, as well as medical and medical consultancy purposes,” said Lisney’s Ross Shorten.

“While the property is contained on the Record of Protected Structures, there is opportunity to create extensions to the existing accommodation to the side and the rear of the property, subject to planning permission. There is also excellent car parking.”

The Molyneux Home is located in one of Dublin’s most sought-after residential and commercial areas and is within 1km of St Stephen’s Green and Grafton Street. It is sandwiched between Christ Church, which is let to the Romanian Orthodox Church, and the Methodist Centenary Church. There are shops and restaurants nearby on Upper Leeson Street. The vehicular entrance to Molyneux Home is shared with Christ Church.

The Molyneux Asylum for Blind Females first opened in 1815 in Peter Street, Dublin 8, in what was formerly the residence of Thomas Molyneux (1641-1733), whose sister-in- law, Lucy Domville, had been blind. This building was demolished in the 1940s, though the asylum itself was relocated to new purpose-built premises in Leeson Park in 1864.

The new building was designed by James Rawson Carroll along with the adjoining Christ Church and was built between 1860 and 1864. Carroll's attention to detail is particularly evident in Molyneux Home.

According to his obituary in the Irish Builder, Carroll was a "kindly, upright, courteous gentleman" whose "clients were in a real sense his friends, no trouble was too great for him to take; indeed, his attention to detail was extraordinary, and therein lay the secret of much of his success.'

Lisney is seeking offers in writing by noon on December 10th.