Dublin’s historic Blackpitts area is set to get a significant new hotel on the site of the derelict pub The Tenters.
BAM Property has submitted planning documents to build an eight-storey, 202-room hotel at the junction between Blackpitts and Mill Street in Dublin 8.
The company said in the planning documents that it had “sourced an international hotel group to operate the hotel” and had filed amendments to a previously granted permission to meet its requirements.
According to the document, submitted last month by David Mulcahy Planning Consultants, the applicants are “mindful that this would be the first hotel in this particular part of the city”.
“They are anxious to create a differentiating factor which will make it stand out in terms of competition with more centrally located hotels,” the documents said.
BAM wants to achieve this by using an “inverted hotel model” where the reception area is switched to the top floor and the rooms are located underneath.
“This model has been successfully employed by the operator in other countries and would be the first of its type in Ireland.”
The hotel is set to be built on a site of about half a hectare, located a ten-minute walk from St Stephen’s Green.
The area was previously used for storing scrap metal and was home to the Blackpitts Craftworks and the former pub The Malt House.
The hotel is part of a broader regeneration of the Liberties area. Documents show that two blocks are set to be constructed, one for the hotel and a second for an “office/science technology block” which will be no higher than eight storeys. The development will also include retail units and an art gallery.
Under the plans, the facade of The Tenters and the craftworks will be retained.
A design statement, submitted alongside the planning by Plus Architecture, said that the “architectural language employed for the scheme has been informed by the robust industrial architectural heritage of the immediate area”.
“The hotel rooms have been configured as a stone-framed matrix of coloured panels and glazing which gently meanders to the line of Mill Street. This form rises to envelop the retained The Tenters pub to create a dramatic termination of the vista from New Row South,” the architects said.
Planning permission was granted to a company called Redquartz in 2006 to build shops, apartments and offices but was never acted upon. BAM was originally granted permission to build a hotel, office and retail space on the site in 2009.
The Liberties area of Dublin is a developing part of the south inner city, home to new cafés and businesses such as The Fumbally and the The Green Door Market. The Teeling Whiskey Distillery, a new tourism attraction, is also near by.
Planning permission has also been granted for Global Student Accommodation, a Dubai-based firm, to build a €41 million student accommodation centre with 400 beds amid a chronic shortage of affordable housing in the capital.