New 374-bedroom student housing scheme set for inner city Dublin

Co Tyrone and London-based builder McAleer and Rushe has secured planning permission to develop a 374-bedroom student housing scheme on a former industrial site in inner city Dublin.

The Cookstown-based firm has signed an agreement with Threesixty Developments to complete the scheme ahead of the start of the academic year in 2018.

Threesixty, formerly Knightsbridge Student Housing, is the company behind the €40 million student accommodation project underway in the Liberties area of Dublin. It is also partnering with McAleer and Rushe on building similar schemes in Southampton and Portsmouth in England.

Work on the new housing scheme, which is to be based on a former industrial site in Summerhill, is to commence during the summer. The seven-storey development scheme has an estimated gross development value of more than €40 million. It boasts generous amenity provision, ancillary retail, external landscaping and a large protected roof terrace with a range of semi-private seating areas.

The deal comes just weeks after McAleer & Rushe announced it had won a contract from Queen’s University Belfast to build more than 1,200 student bedrooms at two city centre sites in a deal valued at €90 million.

The group is also close to completing the refurbishment of Findlater House on Dublin's O'connell Street, into a Holiday Inn Express Hotel for Sunil Joginpally. The Dublin hotel is set to open in the Spring.

Urban Innovations in Belfast have been selected as architects on the Summerhill scheme and the planning consultants are Dublin-based Declan Brassil and Company.

"Summerhill is a great scheme which helps address a serious deficit in quality student housing provision in Dublin and will be a very welcome addition to our growing presence in this strategically important and undersupplied city," said Bob Crompton, chief executive of Threesixty Developments.