Dublin City Council has given the go-ahead to plans for a new 300-bedroom hotel on Dublin’s Bow Lane, near the iconic St. Stephen’s Green. In July, city planners for Dublin City were approached by the British group Marlin, a hotel and serviced apartment group. The group which is owned by Irish businessman John Corless, looked to add an additional 120 bedrooms to the original plans for the development at Bow Lane East.
The council planners are happy for the project to proceed and are insisting that the hotel will not adversely affect the character of the area. The hotel’s planned location is in a hugely historical part of the city and includes one of the earliest habitable houses in Dublin.The project, which is expected to cost around € 60m, will be built by McAleer & Rushe, a Northern Ireland group. The hotel will be up to seven storeys in height, and will take at least 30 months to build. In its application to DCC, Marlin said a shortage of hotel rooms within Dublin and the rest of the country was having “a significant negative impact” on the Irish economy and it was keen to start building.
An Taisce, Ireland’s National Trust, had raised concerns about the “significant bulk” of the proposed hotel, resulting in Marlin scaling back the proposal from 311 rooms to 300. The new hotel is expected to be the focal point of the rejuvenation of the Liberties area in the capital, along with two brand new student accommodation blocks which will service the nearby DIT and Trinity campuses.
