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PLANS TO DEMOLISH a number of buildings in Dublin’s north city centre to make space for a new nine-storey hotel have been approved by the local council.
Fitzwilliam Real Estate Properties, a firm owned by solicitor-turned-developer Noel Smyth, applied to construct the complex on a site that faces onto both Liffey Street Upper and Middle Abbey Street.
The application for planning permission included the demolition of structures on the site and construction of a nine-storey hotel.
Smyth’s firm outlined that the new tourism accommodation block would include 365 bedrooms, a lobby area and lounge with a public bar.
According to documents submitted to the council, the hotel would trade as the Motel One and represent the German brand’s first move into the Irish market.
Motel One, a budget boutique hotel chain owned by Dieter Müller, was set up in 2000. It now has over 18,000 rooms in 65 hotels across eight mainland European countries and the UK.
[image alt="motel one 2" src="http://cdn.thejournal.ie/media/2018/07/motel-one-2-296x182.png" width="296" height="182" title="" class="alignnone" /end]
A number of objections were filed against Smyth’s proposed hotel block before it was given the all-clear by the council.
Heritage group An Taisce said the new development would be “an obtrusive and ungainly new element in the view from the Ha’penny Bridge” and requested the submitted plans be revised.
Noel Smyth
Galway-born Smyth, who is leading the hotel development plan, was previously one of Ireland’s richest men and before the recession had property assets worth over €250 million.
However, state bad bank Nama seized control of a number of his assets during the recession, including 400 of his paintings and his Ailesbury Road home in Dublin 4. Smyth exited Nama in 2013.
Fitzwilliam Finance Partners, an investment company led by Smyth, bought €140 million worth of Arnotts’ loans in 2013 in a move that was reported to be backed by British retailer Selfridges.
Smyth previously revealed plans to build a ‘creative quarter’ on the northside of the River Liffey in the area around Arnotts. Smyth said his rejuvenation plan for Dublin’s north inner city involved opening a number of cafés and restaurants along Liffey Street.
Large hotel projects
The green light for the nine-storey hotel follows a matter of weeks after a similar large-scale project was approved for the old site of Ned’s pub in Dublin city centre.
Tetrarch Capital, the owner of the Citywest Hotel, got permission to build an eight-storey budget 595-unit hotel from An Bord Pleanála after a complaint lodged about scale of the development was overruled by the planning board.
The projects come amid an acute shortage of tourist accommodation in Dublin, with figures compiled by hospitality analytics firm STR Global showing that the Irish capital had an occupancy rate of more than 86% in April.
Written by Killian Woods and posted on Fora.ie
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One big problem in Ireland (Not entirely related to this article) is women with kids are encouraged to stay at home and have to depend on their husbands as creche fees are absolutely absurd. The price to put 2 children into my local creche is €1800 per month. This means that skilled women (in some cases men) are staying at home!
In Belgium they are subsidized so that they can work. Even a house cleaner is subsidized. This kind of system stops women having to stay at home to look after the kids and carry out house work and most importantly getting bullied by an unfair husband!
I don’t think subsidies are the way to go here. people here have this ‘the state should pay for my lifestyle choices’ mentality. Isn’t ireland broke? Why not pay a nanny to look after the kids when you are at work instead? have you a family support network, whereby your parents could help out?
Why didn’t you think of the costs a child involves before you had 2 children in the first place? people in westernized welfare state countries seem to just have kids and expect everyone else to pay for it. This doesn’t happen in the US, and it sure as heck doesn’t happen in any realistic state that doesn’t want to end up in the hands of the IMF.
No Lizzy.
Subsidies are the way to go if it means skilled women are going to be working and paying taxes, this will help Ireland. There are women with PHD’s that are staying at home to look after the kids as its not viable to put them into a creche. This is an awful waste of good skill.
No I don’t have a family support network, My parents are gone and my siblings have emigrated.
Also I don’t have 2 kids, I’m thinking about having kids so I suppose I did think of the costs a child involves as I went away and investigated it.
I was simply stating that the system that exists in Belgium encourages women to work and put their children into childcare rather than depending on their husband just in case the partnership falls apart.
It’s a bit of a tangent, but outside of medicine, I’ve never met anyone with a PhD who created anything
On the issue itself; Subsidies = cash, right? Why not make childcare tax deductible? “The people” abuse free cash just as surely as “the politicians.”
Wrong Chuck, in this case Subsidies does NOT= cash!
In Belgium is costs around €250 to send your child to a creche for the month, It costs this little as it is subsidised by the government. This is certainly the case in Kortrijk.
People pay a lot more tax over there alright but their system seems to work alot better than ours when you count in all the subsidies.
@ Lizzie
Clueless comments really.
Many countries subsidize child care, Belgium, Finland, Sweden, Germany, France and many others.
@ Chuck
“I’ve never met anyone with a PhD who created anything”
Astonishing. Who do you think develops pharmaceuticals? Medical devices? Computers? etc etc etc
“It’s a bit of a tangent, but outside of medicine, I’ve never met anyone with a PhD who created anything”
Read the 7th, 8th, 9th & 10th words there…….
I cannot believe it was only in 1990 that rape within a marriage was ok, if a guy had of tried it he would had swiftly got to meet my friend the baseball bat, I know some one who was raped within a marriage and it changed the person she was and the relationship she had with her child was destroyed
No offense to the Irish generation above me, but you guys have so much crap that you should be ashamed of. On a regular basis I’m thankful that I didn’t have to live into that kind of Ireland.
And in fairness I’ve little doubt the same applied to alot of other small countries too.
We still have a long way to go but we’re making progress.
don’t be so sure that the current generation is without it’s faults and skeletons in it’s closets.
It’s great for you to look back and say the past generations had so much crap but alot of this continous and people in their 20′s now are just as capable of doing the same stuff that people did 40-50 years ago and they do.
True, but at least now,with Internet, immigration and improves technology answer education we’re more influenced by the outside and don’t hold onto ideas and assumptions about how things should be as much.
But yea I’ve little doubt the next generation will look back at massive aspects of our lives and wonder “what the hell were they thinking “.
Adrian your living in a dream world with that reproachful look you throw at the past Irish, and the self congratulation of the present. It’s only because of outside influences that Ireland has OSTENSIBLY changed… the EU, internet and the piles of money invested here which allowed thousands travel and form their own identities free of toxic influences form the collective here.
Some things have changed, but we haven’t moved on that much as a nation, despite outside and technological advances. Still ruled by the corrupt, still women get less pay, less opportunites, still lots of pressure to conform, still poor people and the vulnerable are raped in many other ways then sexually,
and if you haven’t occassionaly fought to change the system that is here, you are just as guilty as anyone in the past. if you have, good on ya!
Well done to the women who have come forward with this story, hopefully you are healing now after all the abuse and shame on the men of this country who did this damage to there wives and families , thankfully we are a society who now can get help with most things and move forward……..well done to OWN try and keep going even though you have little funding .
Thumbs up if you blame the church!
What a dumb comment! Sigh….
I am ashamed of being a man
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